Kings of Persia, and his proper employment while there, to contend with the Prince of the kingdom of Persia; he had been expressly dispatched from thence, to discharge this particular commission in behalf of the prophet Daniel: he had consequently left his proper place vacant, and the discharge of his proper duty in abeyance, for a time, to come on this errand to Daniel. And as an additional means to enable him to judge of the importance attached to his coming, and of the special privilege conceded to himself thereby; he tells him of this further fact, that not only was the Prince of Persia meanwhile to be left behind, while he came on this errand to him, but that as he himself was going forth, the Prince of Javan, that is, Grecia, came.

The received translation has rendered these words as future; "And when I am gone forth, lo! the Prince of Grecia shall come;" in which, as it appears to me, it has greatly mistaken the sense of the original, and greatly endangered the right understanding of the passage for the first impression from this version would be, that when Gabriel was gone forth, the Prince of Grecia would come to take his place; and consequently either to fight with the Prince of Persia, as he himself had done, or to be the means of fresh communications to Daniel, as he had been; both which constructions of the Angel's meaning, I apprehend, would be far from the truth.

But the truth is, that the Hebrew admits of these words' being rendered as simply historical or past; a version which would obviously be much more consistent with the context, than the other. For surely this going forth of the Angel is to be understood of his setting out from where he was; viz. with the Kings of Persia; upon his errand to Daniel: in which case,

he must be understood to say, that as he was setting forth upon that errand the Prince of Javan came. But who was this Prince of Javan? and what the purpose of his coming? Doubtless, if it be true, as the Angel directly afterwards asserts, that not one held with himself upon these things, but Michael, the Prince of Daniel and his people, it was some enemy of Gabriel's and Michael's, both, as much as the Prince of Persia; and the object of his coming was to make common cause with the Prince of Persia in opposing them both. The coming then of such an one was the arrival of one enemy more, in addition to that whom Gabriel had before to encounter; and whom he was preparing to leave behind him, by going on this errand to Daniel: yet notwithstanding this, he tells him he had come on this errand, in his behalf; and he should not return until he had accomplished it, by declaring unto him the thing which was noted in scripture of truth in other words, until he had made him acquainted with so much of the future, in reference to himself and his people, as was already determined on in the counsels of God, and already recorded on the tablets of heaven, and in due time should infallibly come to pass. He reminds him also that in the first year of Darius he was standing to strengthen and to confirm him, though that too was something over and above his proper commission, if Darius was reigning in Media or Babylon, but the Angel's place was with the Kings of Persia; and in like manner now also would he declare to Daniel truth. And this business accomplished, he tells him he should return, to war with the Prince of Persia, that is, go back again where he was before, and to his former employment; though there too, he gives him to understand that he should wage that contest alone,

or with none to assist him, but Michael, Daniel's Prince, and the Prince of his people.

I cannot help thinking that the above is a faithful representation of the exordium of the Angel's address, before he proceeds to the proper execution of his commission, in that revelation of the future which begins at xi. 2, and continues to the end of the book. To return then to the point from which we set out: What evidence do we perceive in these words, of a reference to the three weeks of Daniel's fasting and mourning? and how unworthy of the solemnity and importance of the occasion, if I may again be permitted the observation, would such a reference, supposing it existed, now appear! If so, the argument from the one and twenty days, that they denote so many years, beginning in the third of Belshazzar, remains so far unshaken. But where, we may ask, do they terminate? In the third of Cyrus, the date of this present vision? or at some earlier period? Not in the third of Cyrus, and consequently at some earlier period. For during that one and twenty days' opposition of the Prince of Persia, Gabriel remained with the Kings of Persia: which clearly implies that all that time he did not stir from thence. These one and twenty days, then, were not only one and twenty days of opposition from the Prince of Persia, but of Gabriel's continuance with the Kings of Persia. These twenty-one days, then, must have been over, if it appears that Gabriel after a certain time was no longer with the Kings of Persia, but somewhere else; and it appears that he was no longer with the Kings of Persia, but somewhere else, on two several occasions-once, as he tells us, when he stood up to strengthen and to confirm Darius, and again, when he came on this errand to Daniel. On the one of these occasions he was with Darius in Media

or Babylon; and on the other with Daniel on the Tigris. And whichever of these two was prior in point of time to the other, the twenty-one days of opposition alluded to, which must have expired when Gabriel first quitted Persia, would expire first and properly with that. Now the occasion when Gabriel was with Darius in Media or Babylon, was prior in point of time to that when he was with Daniel on the Tigris. He himself alludes to it on the second occasion, as a past event. The twenty-one days therefore expired properly with that occasion; and that occasion was in the first year of Darius. The twenty-one days therefore expired properly in the first of Darius; and we have seen that they began in the third of Belshazzar. If so, between the third of Belshazzar and the first of Darius, there was exactly one and twenty days' interval; and consequently if these days are to be understood of years, (which after what has been shewn, no one, I should think, will be disposed to call in question,) of one and twenty years.

As we observed in the last Dissertation, the accession of Darius the Mede to the throne of Nebuchadnezzar, was a change in the reigning dynasty, which brought the purposes of Providence with respect to the restoration of the Jews, so much the nearer to their consummation. The seventy years' captivity was even then on the point of expiring. In two years after the accession of Darius, the Jews would return to their native land. The proximity of this event, and its connection with the accession of Darius, are most clearly illustrated by the fact that the same point of time was selected as the moment at which to reveal the prophecy of the seventy weeks-the date of which was in the first of Darius; a prophecy which presupposes the restoration and return of the Jews. Yet the accession

of Darius was not absolutely the commencement of a new dynasty for if it be true, as our other authorities have implied, that his father's sister was the wife of Nebuchadnezzar, and the mother of Evil-merodach, or Belshazzar, himself; then, in defect of the line of Nebuchadnezzar, through Belshazzar, the throne might seem to have devolved upon Darius in something like lineal descent. The years of the captivity were destined to be coextensive with the duration of the Babylonian empire; and that, too, consequently must last seventy years as well as the other. Though therefore the deliverance of the Jews might be at hand, in the first of Darius, it was not yet come; and though the Babylonian empire might be ready to pass to the Persians, when it had devolved upon the Medes, it had not yet passed to them before the first of Cyrus. We may perceive, then, a reason why the angel Gabriel, in his proper vocation as the champion of the people of Daniel, aided and supported by Michael their Prince, should stand up to strengthen and confirm Darius, at the beginning of his reign; and yet the opposition of the Prince of Persia, to himself and Michael, be continuing just the same. Upon that strengthening and confirming of the kingdom in the hands of Darius, we may presume, would depend its ultimately passing into the hands of Cyrus: into whose hands it must pass, before the Jewish captivity could come to an end. We know not the actual circumstances under which the kingdom of Babylon really passed from Nabonadius the last of its possessors, to Darius the Mede. There is an hiatus, upon this subject, in the Book of Daniel, which is very imperfectly supplied from other sources. But we may well presume it was not without a contest of some kind, and not without trouble and danger, if not uncertainty and insecu