either of these conclusions. The latter part of verse 12 might just as well have been rendered, “And I came for thy words," as, "I am come for thy words;" and the particle which is rendered by "But" in verse 13, might still more correctly have been rendered by "And," which is its proper meaning as it stands in the text.

The truth is, as it appears to me, the whole of this tenth chapter of Daniel, or that part of it which contains the account of the words of the Angel, more particularly, labours under an ambiguity in the English version, which does not exist in the original; partly because the position of some things in it, which are parenthetically interposed, and should have been distinguished accordingly, has not been attended to; and partly because the language of history or simple narrative has not been preserved throughout it, as I conceive it should have been, in an historical or recapitulatory summary like this, which refers exclusively to the past, without any allusion to what was present or passing, or had been so recently, at the time. In my own opinion, if this tenth chapter is to be rightly understood, it is to be taken in connexion with the eighth; it being remembered only, that though connected with it in point of reference, or community of subject throughout, it is yet considerably separated from it in point of time; the eighth chapter belonging to the third of Belshazzar, and the tenth to the third of Cyrus.

In support of this opinion, it is necessary to observe that the Book of Daniel admits of being divided into two halves or sections, the historical and the prophetical; the former of which requires to be distinguished from the latter. The former is comprehended between chapter i. and chapter vi. inclusive of both; the latter between chapter vii. and the end of the book. The

former begins with the third of Jehoiakim, or the first of Nebuchadnezzar, reckoned from the time of his association in the empire with his father; that is, from what is equivalent to both, B. C. 606: and ends with the first of Cyrus, as next in succession to Darius, B.C. 536; comprehending a period of seventy years, or the duration of the Jewish captivity from first to last. See Daniel i. 1. 5. 21: ii. 1: v. 31. The prophetical part begins at vii. 1, in the first of Belshazzar, B. C. 561, and ends at x. 1, in the third of Cyrus, B. C. 534; between which extremes, respectively, the interval is twenty-seven years.

For that the first of the visions of Daniel, in other words, the first portion of the prophetical matter, contained in this book, without any mixture of historical, properly so called, bears date from the first of Belshazzar, appears from vii. 1: and that the second does so in the third of Belshazzar, appears from viii. 1: and these dates, if we are right in the conclusions which we have endeavoured to establish-first that Belshazzar was the same with Evil-merodach, the son of Nebuchadnezzar; and secondly, with regard to the end and beginning of his reign respectively-are the same with B.C. 561, on the one hand, and B. C. 559, on the other. But after this second vision, there is no mention of any third one, like either of the former, before x. 1, bearing date in the third of Cyrus; which if literally understood of the third of Cyrus' sole reign, after the death of Darius, would answer to B. C. 534. We have, it is true, the account of a prophecy interposed in chapter the ninth, the date of which was the first of Darius, B. C. 538: the celebrated prophecy of the seventy weeks. But the account of this prophecy is not the account of a vision, like either of those which preceded, in chapter vii. and viii. respectively; or like

that which follows in chapters x. xi. xii. to the end: nor is the subject-matter of this prophecy connected with that of the prophetic disclosures in chapters vii. and viii. which preceded; like that of chapters xi. and xii. which follow. We are justified, therefore, in contending that the continuation of Daniel's visions, strictly so called, after chapter viii. is found in chapter x : and being there resumed, that one and the same thread of prophecy which had been suspended at chapter viii. is carried forward through the xith and xiith chapters to the end of the book: for it requires no proof, that all the matter, from xi. 2. to xii. 13, though divided into two distinct chapters, is yet one and the same in itself, and with what had preceded in chapters vii. and viii. respectively. The chronological series then of Daniel's visions, properly so called, is from the first of Belshazzar to the third; and from the third of Belshazzar to the third of Cyrus. Between the first of Belshazzar and the third, there was no renewal of his visions as such, or none which is upon record; and between the third of Belshazzar and the third of Cyrus, the same thing holds good. If a prophecy is interposed in the first of Darius, it is a prophecy sui generis, and devoted to a different subject from any of the visions before or after it.

Now, as in the account of the vision recorded in the eighth chapter, there is a reference to the vision related in the seventh, (Compare viii. 1. with vii. 1, &c.) so it appears to me, in the account of this vision in the tenth, there is a reference to that in the eighth. Let it only be granted that, as the instrument employed to interpret these visions to Daniel, notwithstanding the difference of the times and occasions on which they were vouchsafed, must have been some definite agent or other, so it was most probably one and the same in each; espe

cially as the occasions themselves, however different in point of time, were yet connected by a community of relation and purpose, and the visions respectively vouchsafed upon each, were devoted to disclosures communis generis in each instance, and carrying on the same train of prophetical history from first to last. This presumption appears only reasonable. Let it therefore be taken for granted, that the party conversing with Daniel, in all these instances, in what manner soever described, whether as simply under the image of an hand appearing to him, or in any other way, and even when indefinitely alluded to, unless the contrary is distinctly specified, or unless there is reason to suspect it from the context, is some one and the same Divine messenger; as at vii. 16, 23: viii. 13. x. 10. 18-xii. 4*. If this was the case, there will probably appear to be no reason, why the Angel employed on these various commissions to Daniel should not be supposed the angel Gabriel. The angel Gabriel is spe

*The only exception to the above presumption would appear to be in that part of the twelfth chapter, which follows from verse 5 to the end, in which, a comparison of xii. 6, 7. with x. 5. will demonstrate that the speaker at xii. 7. must be the same Divine being who appeared to Daniel at the outset of the xth chapter; and whom we have seen to be the second Person in the Holy Trinity, in his Incarnate capacity. Yet in what follows from xii. 8. to the end, there is no reason why the speaker addressed by Daniel at xii. 8. and who answers him from xii. 9, to the end, should not be the same with whom he had been conversing up to xii. 5. There is no reason why the ac

count of the vision from xii. 5-7. should not be considered a parenthesis between xii. 4. and xii. 8. For Daniel, xii. 5. alludes to other two, which recognises the person with whom he had been conversing until then, as a distinct person, whosoever he was: and the language of xii. 9. in the answer of the person addressed by him at xii. 8, just before, (a question founded on the words of the speaker at xii. 7,) is so far the same with that of xii. 4, the last words of the angel with whom Daniel had been conversing uninterruptedly from x. 11, to the account of this vision at xii. 5. that the one may well be considered as the resumption and continuation of the other.

cified by name, on two several occasions, as the actual instrument to make certain prophetical communications to Daniel; the occasion recorded in ch. viii. and the occasion recorded in chapter ix. the former the second of Daniel's visions, the latter the prophecy of the seventy weeks: and there is a reference on the second of these occasions of his ministry to his similar ministry on the former: see ix. 21. and viii. 16. If some one instrument, then, was employed upon all these occasions, there will appear to be little question that this instrument was most probably the angel Gabriel in the rest, who was actually the instrument in two of them*.

* The speaker distinctly specified as Gabriel at viii. 15, 16, may also have been that same saint, indefinitely mentioned at verse 13, just before, as another saint, and as speaking to that certain saint," or as the margin has it, to that "Numberer of secrets," whom Daniel had just heard speaking (see v. 13.) and whose answer to the saint in question alleges the disclosure contained in verse 14. This "Numberer of secrets," or Wonderful Numberer," if the Hebrew term, by which it is so expressed, Phelamouni or Palmoni, be rightly so rendered, might very well be some one distinct from the other saints, and more akin to the personage, described at xii. 7, or x. 5, 6, than to any other, who appears, or is mentioned, in the Book of Daniel: but there is no reason why the saint who speaks to him, and whose question elicits that answer which defines the time of the vision, as at viii. 14, might not be the saint, or holy angel, Gabriel, and the same who was afterwards commissioned to make

Daniel understand the vision, as at viii. 15, and commissioned too, we may presume, by the same Numberer of secrets, or Wonderful Numberer, before adverted to, himself.

With respect to the above denomination, Phelamouni or Palmoni, which occurs only once in the Hebrew text, the Septuagint version and Theodotion, have rendered it as a proper name; and consequently retained it in the text. We learn from Jerome, iii. 1105, ad calcem, in Dan. viii. that Aquila did the same. Symmachus alone appears to have rendered it by rivi TOTE, or nescio cui; a version which Jerome followed himself, and which our translators seem to have thought preferable. But between the marginal sense asIcribed to this word, and nescio cui, or Tivi TOTE, the difference is wide indeed; yet if the word be compounded as it appears to be of, wonderful, and , to number, the marginal sense would seem to be the true. And analogous as this designation appears to be to that of Wonder