A BRIEF
EXPOSITION
OF
THE
PROPHECY OF DANIEL
BY
JOHN THOMAS, M.D.
NONE OF THE UNJUSTIFIED
SHALL UNDERSTAND; BUT THE WISE SHALL UNDERSTAND.”—DANIEL.
BIRMINGHAM
28
“THE.
CHRISTADELPHIAN”, 404 SHAFTMOOR LANE,
HALL
GREEN
Page
... ..Preface.
1 The
Origin and Extent of the Kingdom of Babylon 7
2. The
Kingdom of Men in its various Phases 10
3 The Lion
Phasis of the Kingdom of Babylon ... 11
4 The Bear
Phasis ... ... ... ... .. …………………..11
s. The Four
Headed Leopaid-Phasis ... .…….. ... 12
6. The Ten
Horned Dragon Phasis ... .…….. ... 14
7 The Holy
Ones of the High Ones, and their People……..18
8. .A Season
and Time ... ... ... .., …………………..
9 Origin of the Romano-Greek Babylonian
Sovereignty . 22
10 The
evening Morning Vision ... .……….. ...
27
11 The Holy
shall be avenged “ ... ... .………. ...
27
12. Prophecy
of the Seventy Weeks ... ... …...……… 30
13. Corrected
Version of Gabriel’s Prophecy of the Seventy
\weeks
... ... ... ... ... ...
31
14. Messiah
the Prince “ ... ... ... ... . .. 39
15. What Shall
Befall Judah in the Latter Days ...
.-- 44
16. Paraphrase
of the Eleventh of Daniel to the thirty-fifth
Verse
inclusive ... ... ... ... . .. 48
17. End of the
Maccabean Heptade ... ... ... . .. 55
18. ‘‘ The King ‘‘, or Constantinopolitan
(utoctacv ... ... 56
19. A God of
Guardians, or the Latin Prophet of the West..
61
20. Guardians’
Bazaars, or Temples dedicated to Saints . 65
21. The Holy
Roman Dominion, or Little Horn of the West
70
22. The Time
of the End” ... ... ... ... 74
23. The King
of the North ... ... ... ... ... 77
24. Proof of
the Russian Power being the King of the North
80
25. Future
Magnitude of the Gogian Dominion ... . 85
26. Nebuchadnezzar’s
Image the Symbol of the Autocratic
Confederacy of Gog ... ... ... ... ... 86
27. Edom.
Moab, and Ammon divided off from Turkey for a
Price
... ... ... ... ... ... ...
88~
28. Britain,
the Moabitish Antagonist to Russia in the Latter
Days.. ... . . ... ...
...
... 92
29. The Latter
Days ... ... ... ... .. . 95
30. The ‘ Time of Trouble” ; Position of the Russian
and
British Forces at the Advent ... ... ... . .. 96
31. The
Deliverance of Israel out of the Hand of their Enemies 100
32. Resurrection
to Judgment in the War of God Almighty
104
33 The Wise”
... ... ... ... ... ... 106
34 The Times
of the Kingdom of Babylon and of Judah 109
A BRIEF EXPOSITION
OF THE
PROPHECY OF DANIEL
Pg 7
THE KINGDOM OF MEN “
(Dan.4 : 17) ;and the other THE KINGDOM OF GOD “ (Dan. 2 44; 4:3;7:27)
It is true, that there are
many symbols, such as the Image, the Fiery Furnace, the Tree-Stump, banded with
brass and iron, the Four Beasts~ the Ram, and the He-Goat ; but these are signs in the prophetic heraldry,
not of kingdoms distinct and independent of those which have preceded them, but
of one and the same Kingdom of Men in the several phases of its
existence.
The Kingdom of men was
founded by Nimrod son of Cush, who was Son of Ham, son of Noah. The beginning
of it was Babylon, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. Out
of that land he went forth into :Assyria, and budded Nineveh, and the city of
Rehoboth, and Calah, and Resen between Nineveh and Calah : the same is a great
city “ (Gen. 10; 8-12). This Nimroudia
was the Kingdom of Men in the extent of it during the lifetime of its founder,
comprehending, as we see, Babylon and Assyria. These were its roots and trunk,
which in after ages came to be famous for then strength and altitude, the
beauty of their leaves, the abundance of their fruits, and their wide-spreading
top ; so that all the nations had shadow under it, arid their rulers and great
men dwelt in the boughs, and all flesh were fed of it (Dan. 4 : 10-12)
As a magnificent tree in
the midst of the earth, whose height reached unto heaven, and the sight thereof
to the end of all the earth “, ‘he Kingdom of lien had become under the
proud-hearted Nebuchadnezzar, the destroying lion of his age(Jer. 4:7; 50:
17). He had grown and become strong; for his greatness had grown, and reached
unto heaven, and his dominions to the end of the earth “ (Dan. 4 : 22). In this
testimony ‘ the end of the earth “ is defined by the extent of the
dominion of the Kingdom of Men. It does not extend to the entire globe, for an
immense pry portion of it has ever been beyond the limits of this kingdom. All
Europe, America, and China were beyond the end of the earth “ when
Nebuchadnezzar sat upon the throne
of the Kingdom of Men.
But, when the brazen-coated Greeks under Alexander the Macedonian established
themselves in Babylon, the limits of the earth “ were enlarged ; for in
speaking of the third kingdom of brass “, Daniel revealed to Nebuchadnezzar
that it should
pg 8
bear rule over all the
earth “. When this was accomplished, “the end of the earth” advanced into
Europe, and was defined by the western limit of Alexanders Macedonian
Kingdom. But “ the end of the earth “was not yet fixed even then; for when the
Iron Kingdom annexed the brazen
dominions to a considerable extent, it remove the end of the earth “ to the
Atlantic Ocean. The present constitution of the Iron Kingdom has enlarged “
the earth “ far beyond the shadow of the Assyrian tree when it represented the
greatness of the Kingdom (If Men under- the Chaldean dynasty. It now
comprehends the Holy Roman Empire “, or Little Horn of the West, which
includes papal Germany, of which Austria is the chief dominion. From the Indus,
then (the eastern limit of the Kingdom of Men under the Macedonian Dynasty), to
the German and Atlantic Oceans, comprehending Affghanistan, Persia, Media,
Nimroudia, the Holy Land, Egypt, Arabia, Asia Minor, the rest of the pagan
Roman dominion, the Austrian Empire, and the papal states of Germany——is the
territory, styled in prophetic language “ the earth “, upon which, since the
days of Nimrod, has existed, still exists, and will continue to exist, the
Kingdom of Men until is destroyed by the Kingdom of God!.
From these remarks upon ‘
the end of the earth “, it will be seen that the Kingdom of ‘Men has been diversified in its
constitution, extent, and throne since its foundation by Nimrod to the present
time. Er has nevertheless been the same Nimroudian kingdom, with Babylon and
Assyria for Its characteristics. Cyrus the Persian is styled King of Babylon,
and Artaxerxes, King of Assyria. Though of the Persian stock, having no
consanguinity with Nebuchadnezzar. they were as much kings of Assyria and
Babylon as he. Alexander the Great, though a Greek, and the Selucidae who
succeeded him in that region, were also kings of Assyria and Babylon. When the
Romans got the ascendancy in the Kingdom of Men, they banded the stump of
its tree with iron and brass (Dan. 4 : 15), and converted! their own city
into the Great Babylon “ of the dominion, which by the edict of Caracalla
became co-extensive with
the dominion itself; so that Babylon, as the name of the Empire, came again to
stand by the great river Euphrates, where Nimrod had originally planted the
tree.
The different form. which
the Kingdom of Men had assumed since the overthrow of Nineveh, are represented
in the before-named symbols of the Book of Daniel. The metallic image is that
kingdom as it will exist when Gog comes
to fall upon the mountains of Israel. If the observer take up a position
contemporary with that crisis, and view- the Kingdom of Men as it will then have
existed from the beginning of Its ascendancy over the House of Judah or of
David!, he will perceive that it has assumed five distinct forms ; such as, the Chaldean, the
Medo-Persian, the Macedonian or Grecian,
the Roman, and the Russian ; represented in the order of their enumeration by
the gold, the silver, the brass, the iron, and the clay. But all the important
characteristics of the Kingdom of Men in
relation to the House of David and! the
saints (the Heirs of the divine government styled the Kingdom of God) and
Judah, could not be exhibited in a compound! metallic image of a man : it was,
therefore, necessary to
Pg 9
introduce other symbols
for its elucidation. In the third chapter of Daniel, we are presented with an
interesting illustration of the impiety and blasphemy of the Kingdom of Men ;
of its hostility to the people of the House of David, or the Jews, whether such
by nature, or by walking in the steps of the faith of Abraham, or by adoption; of
the furnace of affliction through which they would have to pass in rejecting
the superstitions of the Kingdom of Men, and in adhering to the truth of God ;
of their meeting with the Deliverer in their extremity ; of the destruction of
their tormenters ; of their final deliverance ; and of the ascription at last
of blessing, and! honour, and glory, and power to the God of Israel by the
assembled nations, when Gods people shall be promoted to the direction
of human affairs, and the Kingdom of Men shall be no more. Nebuchadnezzar, in
referring to his dream, and to the wonderful deliverance of Shadrach, Meshach,
and Abednego, and to the Tree-Stump banded with Brass and Iron, styles them • signs
and wonders that the High God hath wrought towards me “He might well exclaim, “ How great are his signs
! and how mighty are his wonders ! His Kingdom is an everlasting
Kingdom, and his dominion from generation to generation
By the Image-Sign,
Nebuchadnezzar learned for the first time, that the God of Israel was above all
gods and kings ; and that He intended, notwithstanding the Chaldo-Babvlonish
conquest of Judah, and reduction of their city and temple to ruin, to have a kingdom among the generations of men, which in turn
should destroy their kingdom, originally founded by Nimrod.
By the fiery-furnace -•
wonder,“ he was taught, that God would deliver His servants that trust in Him
with a salvation which would make them invulnerable to human power, and! fit to
possess the kingdom which shall not be left to other people “. And, by the sign
of the Tree, and the wonder, of which he was the subject in his own person, he
learned, that the rulers in the Kingdom of Men could not do as they pleased! ;
that those who attained to high places in it (as in his own case) were such as
He sets up as the most fitting instruments to work out His own purposes ; and
that the only kingdom that will be everlasting on earth is His OWN, which is to
grind to powder- and bring to an end all the kingdoms of the Babylonish Confederacy of the Latter Days. These signs
and wonders greatly enlightened the mind and subdued the pride of
Nebuchadnezzar. He came to know that ‘ the
Heavens do rule “ . or, as Paul expresses it,
The existing powers are
subjected to the Deity “ ; an elliptical expression for under the Angels of
the Deity who do His commandments. (Psa. 103:20 ). (Paul says, that God has not put in
subjection the future habitable to the angels “ ; which is tantamount to
saying, that the present habitable, or territory of the Kingdom of Men, is put
under the angels. The same territory in the future will be subjected to the
Christ and his brethren. Heb. 2 : 5, 8-10).
The fifth chapter informs
us how the Chaldean Royalty was finished, and the Kingdom of Men transferred to
the Medes and Persians ; whose dynasty is represented in the seventh and eighth
chapters by a Bear with three Ribs between its teeth, and by a Ram
Pg 10
with horns of unequal
height. The Medo-Persian Royalty of the Kingdom of Men is represented in the
Image by the Breast and the Arms of Silver; and as the Image is to exist
complete in the Latter Days, Persia must be a constituent of the dominion
represented by it. Persia will, therefore, be certainly confederate with Russia
at the overthrow of Gog.
But, an interesting
announcement was made to Belshazzar, styled by Isaiah “ Lucifer, son of the
morning “, before he fell from heaven to go down to the sides of the pit (Isa.
14 : 4, 12, 15). It was, that his kingdom was numbered, and, as far as
his family was concerned, finished.
“. It was relatively
finished, not absolutely so because this finished kingdom was to ‘ be divided,
and given to the Medes and Persians “. The kingdom was numbered, and his tenure
of it likewise. His occupation of the throne as a member of the golden dynasty
had been limited to the seventieth year from the first of Nebuchadnezzars
reign (Jer. 27 : 7 ; 25 : 12). These seventy years were filled! up by
Nebuchadnezzars reign of forty four years ; Evil-Merodachs, of
two years ; usurpers, of four years and nine months ; and Belshazzars,
grandson of Nebuchadnezzar, of nineteen years arid! three months. The Scripture
takes no notice of the usurpers ; I have therefore divided the twenty-six years
remaining after the death of Nebuchadnezzar in the thirty-seventh of Jehoiachins
captivity, between Evil-Merodach and Beishazzar in my chronology at the end of Eureka
II. But the Kingdom of ‘Men, which passed from the golden into the silver
constitution of the empire, had been numbered, as well as the duration of its
Chaldean dynasty. Nebuchadnezzar was not only informed that the Kingdom of Men
should fight its last battle with the Kingdom of God • in the latter days “,
but a sign and a wonder were given him by which he might know how far remote
from his times those appointed days should be. The decree of the Watchers
concerning the duration of the kingdom, or Banded Stump, is, Let seven times pass over him “. When these seven
times should approach their termination the latter days of the Kingdom of
Men would have arrived ; and with them the time for the final overthrow of it
by “THE STONE cut out of the mountain which was not in hands “. But of these seven
times I shall write more particularly hereafter.
In the vision of the Four
Beasts he saw the Kingdom of Babylon in its golden, silver, brazen, iron and
iron and! clay manifestations. Through these distinct symbols he saw what could
not be represented in a statue, where the metals in juxtaposition signified
merely one
Pg 11
united confederacy in
the latter days. By the Four
Beasts he saw that the successive phases through which the Kingdom of the
Serpent was to pass,
were to result from the
tempest of war in the Mediterranean countries. His words are, “ The four winds
of the heaven strove upon the Great Sea, and four great beasts came up from the
sea, diverse from one another “. The winds were not all blowing at once, but
successively and at long intervals, each tempest resulting in a change in the
constitution and government of the Kingdom of Babylon, as represented by the
Beasts. By these belligerent tempests the Macedonian-brass and the Roman-iron
dynasties incorporated themselves with the gold and silver Babylonish
dominion, and with one another, forming thus the Band of Iron and Brass, and
setting itself around! the Tree-Stump when the royalty should be transferred to
Rome as the seat or throne of the power in its fourth beast or dragon
manifestation.
itself was made to stand
erect as a man, and to receive in
exchange for its lion-heart, the heart
of a man. Thus the Lion-Man became the symbol of the kingdom of Babylon so long
as the government continued in the family of Nebuchadnezzar ; which with all
its faults was more human than that which it succeeded.
This transfer of the
government occurred B.C. 542. Its mission was to restore Judahs
Commonwealth, and to extend the boundary of the Kingdom of Men. • Arise,
devour much flesh “, was the policy
Pg 12
of its reign. The Bear was
the symbol of this government, whose
dominion extended from India to Ethiopia,
over a hundred and twenty-seven provinces. The reign of the Bear began under a
Mede, and in two years passed by inheritance to Cyrus, a Persian. This change
of position was represented to Daniel in the saying that “it raised itself
on one side “, so that one side became “ higher than the other” ; but
before it raised itself up, the higher side was no higher than the other ;
therefore the higher side acquired its position last, as appears in the history
of the time. The Ram in the eighth chapter with horns of unequal height is another
symbol for the same government : the unequal elevation of the sides of the
Bear, and the different altitude of the Rams horns, are conditions
representative of the same dynastic peculiarity— ‘The higher horn
came up last ‘.
The Bear had also another
peculiarity worthy of note. • It had three ribs in the mouth of it between its
teeth “. These ribs represented the threefold division of its conquests. The
interpretation is found elsewhere in these words of Daniel : ‘ It pleased
Darius to set over the kingdom a hundred and twenty princes, who should be over
the whole kingdom ; and over these, three presidents, of whom Daniel was
chief: that the princes might give account to them, and the king (the
Bear-Mouth) should have no damage “. The three presidencies, then, of the
silver dominion were the ribs in the mouth of the Bear.
In dismissing this symbol,
it is worthy of remark, that while the Ram, by which the Persians
represented themselves in Daniels time, is their symbol in relation to
the Macedonians under Alexander, the Deity bath chosen for them the Bear to-signify
them as an element of the Image in the latter-days. The latter-day symbol then
of Persia, is a Bear ; and a Bear is at this time her formidable neighbour, and
has already taken from her a large portion of her territory. The Russian Bear
is destined to supersede her present government as an independent sovereignty,
and to grasp Persia between its teeth from near India to Ethiopia, which is to
lie ‘‘ at his steps ‘‘. This is no mere conjecture, but absolutely
certain; for Yahweh has declared by Ezekiel that Persia shall he an
element of Gogs confederacy, and that Gogs is the Russian power
will be seen when I come to treat of the King of the North at the rime of the
end. The Ram continued 206 years and 9 months.
Pg 13
the death of Alexander a
long period of war ensued, which resulted (B.C. 301) in the establishment of
the following kingdoms on the
territory of the Kingdom
of Men.
First Head.—The Kingdom of the south, comprehending Egypt, Libya,
Arabia, Coele-Syria, and Palestine, under the Ptolemies. —
Second Head.——The Kingdom of the
north-west, including
Thrace;Bithynia, etc., or
the Thraco-Macedonian.
Third Head.—
The Kingdom of the north-east, comprehending the rest of
Asia inclusive of Babylon and its province; and extending beyond the Euphrates
to the Indus. India beyond that river, though allotted to this head, revolted;
so that the Indus became its boundary. This was the Macedo-Babylonish Kingdom
of the Seleucidae.
Fourth Head.—
The Kingdom of the west, embracing Macedonia and Greece.
The Lion-Man, the Bear,
the Leopard, and its Third Head, or Kingdom of the North, all established
themselves in the city of Babylon, where Alexander “ held, as it were, the
States-General of the world “, and which he had resolved to make the throne of
his empire. But the decree of heaven was against the city (Isa 14:22,23; 13:19,22).. The purpose of
AIexander was frustrated by death; and by B.C. 293, it became an uninhabited desert by the
inundation of the Euphrates and the building of Seleucia on the banks of the
Tigris about forty miles above, to which its citizens removed. Thus, the tree
of Babylon was hewn down, its branches lopped, its leaves shaken off, and
its fruit scattered ; so that the nations got away from under it, and their
rulers from its branches. Nevertheless, the stump of its roots remained (Dan.
4: 14, 15) under the sovereignty of the Third Head of t he Leopard
founded by Seleucus, for almost 250 years, when the anexation of the Macedo-Babylonish
territory to the Roman; and the band being thus formed, it was found at length
encircled by it B.C. 65
Of the four heads of the
Leopard and the four horns of the Goat, but two only figure in the
prophecy of Daniels book. The reason of this is, that the prophecy was
not delivered to prefigure the history of the Gentiles ; but to foreshow how
the international policy of some of them in its bearing upon Judah, the Holy
Land, and the saints, would at length create such a situation of affairs in the
end, as would favour the execution of
the divine purpose of demolishing the powers of the Gentiles in the
establishing of the Kingdom of God. “ The secret of Yahweh is with them
that fear him.” The matter is therefore revealed for the information of those
that obey him, that they may not be taken unawares. “The wise shall
understand.” Let them know, then, that the policy of only two heads of the
Leopard is foreshown, because they only of the four had to do -with Judah and
the Holy Land; and were sufficient to connect the iron with the silver of the
Image. Hence the individual dominion of Alexander was the Belly, and these two
heads also the two Thighs of brass ; and therefore continuous with the iron
Roman leg : so that the brass and iron limbs of the image from hip to ankle
represent the fourth form in its Graeco-Roman constitution. The two thighs and
the two heads represent the Kingdom of the South, and the Kingdom
Pg 14
of the Northeast, as above
defined ; and with the Little Horn of the Goat, or eastern element of the
Fourth Beast, in relation to Judah and the Holy Land, are the powers of the
eleventh chapter from the fifth verse to the end.
It had Ten Horns.
They stood up as long as the beast
continued! in life ; but not all : for three of them fell before an eleventh
that came up on the beast afterwards. Seven strong horns and three broken, or •
plucked up by the roots “. These ten horns thus conditioned, with the
brazen-claw-ed feet, represent the same things as the iron~clay feet and toes
of the Image. When the Russo-Greek elements (clay and brass) are combined with
the Gomerians (iron) in the Gog confederacy, the feet of the Graco-Roman Dragon
will be manifested ; and! it will then ‘‘ stamp the residue with the feet of it
“. Hitherto the Dragon has destroyed with its ‘‘ great iron teeth
hereafter it will use its
feet and claws. The Feet of the Image, and the Feet of the Dragon, has- yet to
be formed out of existing elements and it is the King of the Norths
mission to accomplish the work.
The Horns of the Dragon, and the Toes of the
Image, representing kingly- powers, or thrones; which are to exist until the
taking possession of the Dragon-dominion by the Saints shall he perfected. They
are emblems of kingdoms existing when
the judgment sits for the destruction of the kingdom of Babylon. I know of no
place where it is written that the Horns and Toes were to have an uninterrupted
existence of 1260 years but I do find that “ the Ten Horns receive power as
kings one hour with the beast ‘‘ (Rev.
17 : 12)—that is, thirty years; so that we need riot be careful to identify
them until then.
After the Horns had struck their
roots into the Dragon territory, an “ eleventh came up among them “ which
Daniel characterizes a
a Little Horn “. In order
to make room for itself it subdued three of
pg 15
the ten, and incorporated
their territories into its own dominion. This incorporation made it imperial—an
Emperorship in the midst of Seven Kingdoms; so that it stood as the Eighth
Power.
But this eighth power was
diverse from the Seven; in that it had the Eyes of a Man which gave it a more
audacious look than the others;
and! a mouth by which it
spake very great words against the High Ones, thinking to change times and
laws. The eyes and mouth of the
Little Horn were
sufficient for all the rest. Its undertaking to speak as the representative of
the High Ones in regard to times and laws connects the mouth with matters
spiritual, showing that the horn, eyes, and mouth, ate emblematical of a civil,
military, and ecclesiastical power. This power manifested itself originally in
Rome AD. 8oo, as the Western Roman, or “ HOLY R0SIAN EMPIRE “ ; of which I
shall speak more particularly hereafter. Suffice it to say here, that while the
jurisdiction of the secular element of the horns has been limited to its proper
territory, the spiritual dominion of the Eyes and Mouth has reigned in the
kingdoms of all the horns of the Dragon-territory ceded to the western beast.
In the countries ruled by
these eight horns have existed classes of people against which, under the
influence of the Eyes and Mouth, they have entertained unmitigated and cruel
hatred. They have poured out their blood like water, and harassed them with all
possible pains and penalties. The enmity that has obtained between these
Horn~powers and these classes has been mutual and implacable; so that war
between them could only be finally extinguished by the conquest of one party or
the other. These classes are called kaddisbin, that is, Holy Ones whose
fate has been to be overcome by the imperial and regal papal powers of Babylon.
This was foreshown to Daniel in these words, ‘ I beheld, and the same Little
Horn made war with the holy ones, and prevailed against them “. The subjugation
of the holy ones, however, was not a finality. Yahweh never intended that the
Seed of the Woman should be bruised in the head, or finally crushed; that is a
fate in reserve for the Serpent-power and its adherents. All that this can do
against” the holy ones of the Most High “ is to bruise them in the heel, which
is as curable, and in the same way, as the wound it inflicted on Christ, when
on the accursed tree (styled by the Seed of the Serpent ‘ Holy Cross “) “ the
iniquity of his heels compassed him about “—that is, by a resurrection from
among the dead to eternal life at the coming of Messiah. It is therefore only
until the time of this event that the Imperio-Regal Papacy of the Babylonish
dominion prevails over the Holy Ones of the Most High as it is written, “ The
Little Horn prevailed against them, UNTIL the Ancient of Days came
Here is a point of time
beyond which the misfortunes of the Holy Ones
do not extend, it is the
turning-point in their career in relation to the “ dreadful and terrible, and
exceedingly strong” dominion that makes
such dreadful havoc on the
earth—-a dominion which no earth-born
power can subdue.
The coming of the Ancient of Days is a
great event in this prophecy. He is said to sit, and one like the Son of Man to
be brought to him, after which He is said to come. When the prophecy was
Pg 16
delivered He had not
manifested Himself in the flesh—the Son of Man had not been born; hence that
peculiar representative mode of expression : but he has since been born, or
manifested, and gone into a far country, where the manifested Son has appeared
in the presence of the Ancient of Days, or the Father, for the purpose of
receiving from him “dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, and
nations, and languages, should serve him; and all rulers obey him” (Dan. 7;13,14,27) ; Luke 19: 12, 15). Though these
things ate promised to him, and though he is the heir of them all, he has not
received them; as is manifest from the fact that ‘ all people, and nations, and
languages” serve the rulers of the Gentiles, and especially that system of
governments represented by the Greco-Roman Dragon. But when the time appointed
arrives, as the Ancient of Days embodied in the holy spiritual nature, he will
come, having received power and authority to take the dominion, glory, and
kingdom, promised him. Thus the Ancient of Days comes, and sits in Jerusalem,
the Holy City, to judge all the nations round about (Joel 3 :12,16)— there he
sits, “ his throne being like the fiery flame, and his ‘wheels as burning fire
“, and sends forth from before him a stream of fire.
For the signification of
the Wheels and Fire read Ezekiels first and tenth chapters. They are
parts of his imagery put for the whole in this text of Daniel. The Spirit of
the Living Creatures is in the Wheels.” They represent the same as the four
living creatures in Rev. : 8-ic. They are the redeemed out of every kindred,
and tongue, and people, and nation “, raised from the dead, in consuming and
destructive motion against the body and horns of the Graeco Roman Dragon. They
are the thousand thousands who minister to the commands of the Ancient of Days;
and go forth with him as a fiery stream against the Beast and the False
Prophet, and the Kings of the earth and their armies “, to give them “ of the
wrath of God poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation “—thus
tormenting all the adherents of the Beast and his Image with fire and brimstone
in the presence of the holy messengers, and in the presence of the Lamb (Rev. 14:10; 19;19-21).
When the manifested
Ancient of Days comes, this judgment is set, and the books are opened; and
whosoever is found written in the lambs Book of Life awakes to everlasting
life, and to a participation in the judgment upon the Four Beasts; and
whosoever is not found written there is cast into the burning flame that
destroys the body of the Dragon (Rev. 20: 15, : 21 : 27).
The taking away of the
dominion of Babylon, and the bringing of its kingdom to an end, is the work
assigned to the Holy Ones; who in overthrowing the Gentile powers will also
appropriate to their own use all they possess. Hence, at the coming of the
Ancient of Days, it is testified that the hitherto vanquished holy ones should
become conquerors in their turn—should conquer the gold, and the silver, and
the brass, and the iron, and the clay; or the four kingdoms of Powers that
exist on the Babylonish earth, and take them for themselves : as it is
written, “ These great beasts, which are four, represent four kings, or
royalties, which shall arise out of the earth. But the
Pg 17
holy ones of the High Ones shall take
the Kingdom (of Babylon) and possess the kingdom for the age, even for the age
of the ages “. Again, “The Ancient of Days came, and judgment was given to the
holy ones of the High Ones “ ; when “ the time came that the ho1y ones should
possess the kingdom “. And again, “ Let the saints by joyful in glory; let them
sing aloud upon their beds. Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, and
a two-edged sword in their hand; to execute vengeance upon the nations, and
punishments upon the people; to bind their kings with chains, and their nobles
with fetters of iron; to execute upon them the judgment written: this honour
have all his saints “ (Psa. 149 :
9). The” judgment written
the judgment that sits
when the Ancient of days comes. They are not only to slay the Fourth Beast, and
to destroy its body with fire and brimstone; but they are to take away the
dominion of the Lion Man, the Bear, and the Leopard; whose peoples, and
nations, and languages, however, will experience a better fate than those of
the Fourth Beast dominion; for, while the constitutions of the Latins are
exterminated, the populations of Assyria, Persia, and Macedonian Egypt, are
permitted to retain their nationality for a season and time. That they do
remain distinct national organizations is evident from the following
testimonies: In that day shall there be a highway out of Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian
shall come into Egypt, and the Egyptian into Assyria, and the Egyptians shall
serve with the Assyrians. In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and
with Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the land; whom Yahweh Tzvaoth~
shall bless, saying, Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my
hand, and Israel mine inheritance” (Isa.
19:23-24)
And, “ I will set my
throne in Elam, and will destroy from thence the king of princes : but it shall
come to pass in the latter days, I will bring again the captivity of Elam,
saith Yahweh” (Jer 49:38.39)
The manner in which the
dominion of Assyria and Elam or Persia is taken away when the judgment sits, is
revealed in Micahs prophecy concerning him who was to be born in
Bethlehem “to be Ruler in Israel “, that is, concerning Christ who was born
there. He writes, ‘And he shall stand and rule in the strength of Yahweh, in
the majesty of the Name of Yahweh his Elohim; and they (Israel) shall abide;
tor now shall he (Christ) be great unto the ends of the earth. And this
(Christ-Man) shall be the peace (of Israel) when the Assyrian (the king of the
north or Gog) shall come into our land: and when he shall tread in our
fortresses, then shall we raise against him seven leaders, even eight anointed
ones of the Adam. And they shall waste the land of Assyria with the sword, and
the land of Nimrod in the entrances thereof: thus shall he (Christ) deliver
from the Assyrian, when he cometh into our land, and when he treadeth within
our borders “ (Micah 5 : 2 6). These eight anointed ones are some of the holy
ones with the Ancient of Days who execute judgment at his appearing.
But, at what time does he
appear? This is found by attending to what is said concerning the Little Horn
power and the holy ones. It is to prevail against them until the Ancient of
Days come, which
Pg 18
“ until” is indicated in
the words, “ The holy ones shall be given into his power until a time,
and times, and the dividing of a time “. Hence, the Ancient of Days will come
at the end of this period, which has not yet expired; for if it had, the
Ancient of Days would now be in Teman, or the South of the Holy Land, the holy
ones would now he preparing to execute judgment, and the season and time would
be at hand. There are no data in the seventh of Daniel for the calculation of
the three times and a half, or i z6o years, as they are well understood to
signify. All that can be known from it is, that they pertain to the Greco-Roman
Dragon, that they end with the commencement of judgment upon its Little Horn,
and with the approach of the “season and time” : we must look to other
testimonies to ascertain the duration of this, and the probable termination of
the 1260 years.
Daniel does not tell us
here how long a time after the ending of the 1260 years will be occupied in the executing of
judgment by the holy ones upon the Body, Little Horn and Ten Horns, of the
fourth beast, which are to be utterly destroyed. This can be learned from
another source. He contents himself for the time with informing us of the
general result of the judgment in the entire and complete overthrow of the
Kingdom of Babylon represented by the four beasts; and in the setting up of the
kingdom by the God of heaven (Dan. 44)
through the agency of the holy ones inclusive of Christ, which is their chief.
Hence, he concludes the account of his vision by saying, “And the kingdom and
dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven shall
be given to the people of the holy ones of the High Ones, whose kingdom is an
everlasting kingdom, and whom all dominions shall serve and obey “. This
accomplished, the kingdom will be “ restored again to Israel “ (Acts 1 : 6) and
be in the hands of those for whom it has been preparing “from the foundation of
the world” (Matt. 25 :34), and who once seized of it will “ not leave it to
other people “, but retain it “ for ever “.
The holy ones of the High
Ones whose Head is Christ, take the kingdom which is then given to the people
of the holy ones. These
Pg 19
are the Twelve Tribes of
Israel, who, under the government of the holy ones, possess “the kingdom and
dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven “. They
possess these in the sense in which a nation is said to possess such things, while
at the same time it is only the princes and rulers of the nation who possess
the glory, honour, majesty, and high offices of the kingdom. The holy ones and
their Head the Most Holy Prince will possess these with immortality, which
pertains to them exclusively; while the Israelites. who constitute “the people
“, or subjects of the kingdom, will stand related to the holy ones as the
subjects of all other nations do to the nobility and government of their
kingdoms; but with this exception that, whereas the subjects and rulers of
kingdoms hitherto existing in the world have been all mortal, and therefore
under the necessity of leaving their houses, dignities, and power to other
people, or successors, the princes of the kingdom of the Deity in the Holy Land
will be deathless, but the subjects thereof mortal.
The possessing of the
kingdom and dominion and their greatness under the whole heaven of the four
beasts by Israel, is predicted by the prophet Micah in these words: “I will
surely assemble all of thee, O Jacob; I will surely gather the remnant of
Israel . . . In that day, saith Yahweh, will I assemble her that halteth, and I
will gather her that is driven out, and her that I have afflicted; and I will
make her that halted a remnant, and her that was cast far off a strong nation;
and Yahweh shall reign
over them in Mount Zion from henceforth, even for the age. And thou, 0 Citadel
of the flock, the stronghold (if the daughter of Zion, unto thee shall it come,
even the First Dominion; the Kingdom shall come to the daughter of Jerusalem”
(Micah 2: 12; 4: 6-8). And by Zephaniah, Yahweh saith, “Sing, O daughter of
Zion; shout, 0 Israel; be glad and rejoice with all the heart, 0 daughter of
Jerusalem. Yahweh hath taken away thy judgments, he hath cast out thine enemy
(the Turk, and afterwards the Russian) ; the King of Israel, Yahweh, is in the
midst of thee; thou shalt not see evil any more . . . Behold, at that time I
will undo all that afflict thee; and I will save her that halteth, and gather
her that was driven out, and I will get them praise and fame in every land
where they have been put to shame” (Zeph. 3 : 14-20). And again, he says by
Zechariah, “ Sing and rejoice, 0 daughter of Zion; for Lo, I (Christ) come, and
I will dwell in the midst of thee; and many nations shall be joined to Yahweh
in that day, and shall be my people; and I will dwell in the midst of thee; and
Yahweh shall possess Judah his portion in the Land of Holiness, and shall
choose Jerusalem again” (Zech. 2 : 10-12). “I will dwell in the midst of
Jerusalem; and Jerusalem shall be called a city of truth,, and the mountain of
Yahweh of hosts the holy mountain. There shall yet old men and old women dwell
in the streets of Jerusalem, and every man with his staff in his hand for very
age. And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in the
streets thereof. For I will save my people from the east country, and from the
west country; and I will bring them, and they shall dwell in the midst of
Jerusalem; and they shall be my people, and I will be to them for Elohim in
truth and righteousness.
Pg 20
Yea, many people, and
strong nations shall come to seek Yahweh of hosts in Jerusalem, and to pray before
Yahweh. In those days ten men shall take hold out of all languages of the
nations, even shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, We
will go with you : for we have heard
that Elohim is with you” (Zech. 8 : 3-8, 22,23)
“ Then shall the children of Judah and the
children of Israel be gathered together, and appoint themselves One Head (or
king), and they shall come up out of the land (of the enemy), for great shall
be the day of Jezreel” (Hos. 1 : 11).
“And I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel; and
one king shall be king to them all: and they shall be no more two nations,
neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all. And THE
BELOVED my servant shall be king over them: and they shall have one Shepherd:
they shall also walk in my
judgments, and observe my statues, and to do them. And they shall dwell in the land that I have
given unto Jacob my servant, wherein your fathers have dwelt; and they shall
dwell therein, they, and their childrens children forever. And my
servant the Beloved shall be their prince for ever” (Ezek. 37 : 22-2 5).
From these testimonies it
is evident, that a kingdom consisting of the twelve United Tribes of Israel is
to be established in the Holy Land under a king high in the favour of the
Ancient of Days; and that when it exists it will have the ascendancy in the
world, and be celebrated for the fame and glory of its people among all
nations. It is clear also that the accomplishment of these predictions will
settle all controversies about “ the Holy Places “, and be a quietus to all
“Eastern Questions “. The reduction of the promises of Deity to accomplished
facts must be the extinction, not only of the Ottoman, but of all the
governments and powers of Europe and Asia; and the substitution of the
Israelitish Dominion in their place, when Israel shall be Yahwehs
firstborn (Exod. 4:22) among the nations of the coming age. Being the body of
this kingdom, whose founders are the High Ones, and its rulers and princes
their holy ones, the people of the holy ones are the constituents, or
commonalty, of the body, even the twelve tribes of Israel, the nation of
Yahweh.
The Holy Ones that slay
the Graeco-Roman Dragon, destroy its body in the burning flame of their power,
and take away the dominion of the Lion-Man, Bear, and Leopard, ate persons who
have attained to immortality as a part of the reward promised in the gospel of
the kingdom to all “who walk in the steps of the faith of Abraham “, whose
faith was made perfect by his works (Rom. 4 : 12; Jas. 2 : 22). That they ate
immortals is evident, from it being affirmed of them that they possess the
kingdom for ever, which those only can do who are deathless. These immortals
are called holy ones because they attain to immortality on account of their
previous o mess “ without which no one can see the Lord” ; that is, the High
Ones of the vision. From this a very interesting question arises, namely, What
did their holiness consist in that gave them acceptance with the High Ones This
is a question answered in the following words by the Spirit of God:
“The..saints are they who keep the commandments of Deity, and the faith of
Jesus” (Rev. 14: 12). Hence, it is
written, “Blessed
Pg 21
are they that do his
commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in
through the gates into the city” ; that is, that they may have right to immortality, and may enter
into the kingdom by resurrection to everlasting life (Rev. 22 : 14). The faith of Jesus is explained as
being “ the testimony of Jesus “—what is taught of Jesus Christ (Rev. 12 : 17 ; 19 :10 ) ; and “ the testimony of
Jesus “ is the spirit, or import, of the prophecy. ‘‘ The words I speak unto
you “, said he, “ they are spirit, and they are life “ (John 6 : 6;) : that is,
the words I speak believed, make alive. The doctrine taught by Jesus
intelligently and heartily believed is spirit, from which as the germ of a new
existence, holiness unto eternal life originates. The words spoken by Jesus are
styled “ the good message concerning the kingdom of the Deity “, and “ the
words of eternal life “. To those who received these words he said, “ Ye are
clean through the word which I have spoken to you “ ; and on such, purified in
mind and disposition by belief of that word, he commanded his apostles to
enjoin immersion into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Spirit “ (Matt. 28:19) that they might
thus become the children and brethren of the High Ones (Gal. 3 : 26, 27). Being
thus by faith and obedience introduced into Christ, he is to them wisdom and righteousness, and! sanctification, and
redemption (1 Cor 1 : 30) ; that is, they are in a state of purity, and holy,
being in him.
Having been thus constituted
righteous and holy persons by being washed!, sanctified, and justified in the
name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of their God (1 Cor. 6 : 9- 11); they
therefore ‘‘ yield their members servants to righteousness unto holiness “ for”
having been made free from sin, and become servants to God, they have their
fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life” (Rom. 6 : 19, 22). In
the vision under consideration, Daniel saw— them as having attained to that
end; and saw them likewise as the
military chieftains of their people, Israel taking violent possession of ‘‘ the
kingdom and glory to which they had been called “ ; for -‘ the kingdom of the
heavens suffereth violence and the violent take it by force
Pg 22
period beyond the
age of ages, what then? Paul informs us, that at the end the Son of Man shall
deliver up the kingdom to the Father, or Ancient of Days, having by that time
put down all rule, and all authority, and power: for he must reign till he has
put all enemies under his feet. And when all things shall be subdued unto him,
then shall the Son also himself be subject to the Ancient of Days who puts all
things under him, that God may be the all things in all (1 Cor. 15 24). It is
evident, then, from this, that the kingdom and dominion are not to continue
unchanged interminably; but that when the time comes to abolish death from the
earth, that abolition will necessitate a change in the constitution of the
world. The reign of the Son of Man and his holy companions over nations of
mortal men is therefore limited by that necessity. If, then, we can
find a revelation of how long they are to reign, we shall have ascertained the
duration of the season and time. This matter was revealed to John in
Patmos. He tells us that lie saw one descend from heaven and bind the Dragon,
so that the power could not injuriously affect the nations for 1,000 years; and
that coevally with that period he saw persons occupying thrones who reigned
with Christ as the priests of God (Rev. 20: 1-6).
A season and time, then,
is 1,000 years, or two times of 360 years -each; and a set time of 280
years ; or nine months and ten days of years,
280 days being a set time, or period of gestation (Gen. 2 I : 2). For
this season and time of 1,000 years the holy ones possess the world as theirs.
At the end of that time, sin being eradicated, death is abolished, and their
priesthood necessarily ceases. They therefore
reign no more as priests; but the Deity is all things in all the
dwellers upon the eart
exhibiting certain
important events in the future history of Judah, characterized by the
suppression of their religious polity, the destruction of their commonwealth,
and subversion of their power for a long series of ages ; but with the
consolatory assurance that God would! avenge them, and by a Great Deliverer
destroy the power that had-so long oppressed them.
By studying the symbols of
this chapter the power will be found to originate in Babylon, and to be the
same as that represented by the four beasts, but without the introduction of
the Ten Horns and the Little Horn with its Eyes and Mouth. These signify the
Latin or papal governments of the west in their relation to the holy ones while
the Bear and the Ram, the Leopard and the He Goat, the fourth Beast, and the
Little Horn of the Goat, are the heraldry of the same dynastic manifestations
of the kingdom of Babylon in relation to the people of the holy ones: that
is, THE SAINTS NATION, in its Occupancy of the Holy Land.
Daniel saw the vision
while residing in Persia at the palace of Shushan, under the government of the
Lion-Man, which had but
Pg 23
sixteen years to continue
over the affairs of the kingdom of Babylon. Hence, the Chaldean sovereignty
being about to pass away, and sufficient having been revealed in former visions
and signs, it was unnecessary to introduce it again: therefore, in the one
before us the symbol presented first is that emblematic of the Babylonish power
after it had been transferred to -the conjoint dynasty of the Medes and
Persians.
The emblem of the
Medo-Persian dynasty was a Ram with two horns of considerable and unequal
height. It is unnecessary to repeat here what has already been said of the Ram
when treating of the Bear. It will be sufficient to add, that Daniel saw the
Medo-Persian symbol pushing westward, that is, towards Greece; northward, and
southward, towards Egypt; so that no beasts or dominions could stand
successfully against it. It, therefore, “ did according to its will, and became
great “. The reason of this greatness is given in 11:1, from which we learn
that it was because the kings of the Ram dynasty were strengthened by an
angel-prince devoted to the interests of Judah. In the second verse of this
chapter there is a particular mentioned concerning the military operations of
the Ram-king which is noted as a cause of the enmity which led in the end to
the subversion of their power by the Greeks. There were thirteen Medo-Persian
kings; but the revelator takes no notice of any of them after the fourth that
reigned after Cyrus. In the third year of Cyrus he said to Daniel, Behold,
there shall yet stand up three kings in Persia “ ; namely, Cambyses, the
Ahasuetus of scripture; Smerdis the Magian, and Darius; “ and the fourth shall
be far richer than they all “. This was Xerxes : “ and by his strength through
his riches he shall stir up all against the realm of Grecia” ; which saying is
a prediction of the celebrated invasion of the west, so familiar to the reader
of ancient history.
The time of the vision
between this reign and the sixth year of the reign of the last of the
Ram-kings, a period of about 142 years was occupied by the prophet in
considering. “ And as I was considering “, says he, “ behold, a He-Goat came
from the west over the face of the whole earth” ; that is, over the face of the
whole Ram-empire; “and nothing upon the earth smote (him), and the Goat had a
conspicuous horn between his eyes “. The things represented b the Goat and its
Horn are then interpreted in the twenty-first verse of the eighth chapter: “And
the rough Goat is the kingdom of Grecia;~ and the Great Horn between his eyes
is the first king” .~ and what is affirmed of them is thus explained in
11 : 3 : “And a mighty king shall stand up, that shall rule with great
dominion, and do according to his will “: The doing of this mighty king of
Greece according to his will is thus expressed in chapter 8 : “And he came to
the Ram, and ran unto him in the fury of his power; and he came close to him,
and was moved with anger against him, and smote the Ram, and brake his two
horns : and there was no power in the Ram to stand before him, but he cast him
down to the ground, and stamped upon him; and there was none that could deliver
the Ram out of his power “. This is highly descriptive of the war between the
Greeks and Persians
Pg 24
which resulted in the
overthrow- of the Ram-dynasty, and the transfer of the Kingdom of Babylon to
Alexander the Great, the notable horn of the goat nation. All the power of this
kingdom was now vested in
the first king “, who ‘
became very great “, and! when he had attained to the fulness of his power, ‘
he wept because there were no more worlds for him to conquer “. His dominion
extended front Macedonia to beyond the Indus and from the GuIf of Persia to
Scythia; and is represented by the belly of brass in Nebuchadnezzars
Image, and in the interpretation thereof termed ‘‘ the third kingdom of brass
which shall bear rule over all the earth “.
The Ram having disappeared
from view-, the prophets attention was concentrated upon the Goat, and
especially- upon his Horn. He saw that “ when the Goat was strong, the Great
Horn was broken
that is, the power of the
kingdom departed from the first king and his family, before any reverses
overtook the nation. Alexander died in Babylon from intoxication, leaving his
unbroken dominion to be contended for and possessed by the strongest. It was
revealed to Daniel that it should be divided into four notable sections. but that no blood—relations of the first king
should possess then. The division of Alexanders empire were represented
by ‘‘ four notable horns coming up in the place of the broken horn toward the
four winds of heaven “ ; and! in regard to the succession it was addled (11 :
4) “ but not to his posterity, nor according to the (extent of the) dominion
which he ruled; for his kingdom shall he plucked up even for others (for other
rulers) beside those “ of his posterity. This is the meaning of four kingdoms
stand ing up out of the nation, but not in his -power “
.
The Four Heads of the
Grecian Leopard, and the Four Horns of the Grecian Goat, both fours pointing
toward the four winds, are representative of the same Grecian powers. The
reader can refer to what I have said about the Leopard for the signification of
the four horns of the Goat. In the eighth chapter nothing more is said about
the four horns. They were only introduced into this vision because of the ds
nasty that was to succeed them as the heir of the Babylonian power , which was
to make its appearance in the east ‘‘ out of one of them”. ‘The eleventh
chapter, from the fifth to the thirty-first verse, treats of two of them, the
northern and southern horns in their struggles with one another for ascendancy
in the Holy Land, and consequent lordship over Judah ; and! thus the treatise
fills up the interval between the foundation of the horn kingdoms and the
incipient intervention of” the breakers of Daniels people “ who should
exalt themselves to establish the vision. Besides this, two of the Goat Horns
were indispensable to the representation of the solution of the Eastern
Question (If our day, called “ the Time of the End “. They are therefore
introduced again in the fortieth verse and one of them, the northern, is kept
in view- to the end of the chapter, being inseparable at last from the Little
Horn of the Goat which came up out of it and merges again into it ; so that the
fate of the one becomes the fate of the other, which is to be broken without
help.
Pg 25
It will be seen by the
countries subjected to the third head or horn, that the Kingdom of Babylon
passed from Alexander to Seleucus and his successors of the northern horn. The
Babylonish power has been particularly hostile to Judah and the holy ones from
Nebuchadnezzar
to the present time, and
will be to the end. Before Christ it seemed to have reached the climax of
hatred in the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes, who polluted the temple, took away
the daily, and set up the abomination of the desolator. This extreme
indignation against the temple worship was a type of the violence of the
Little Horn that should come up against Jerusalem out of his territory, the
effect of which would be far more permanent than his.
In the latter time of the
dominion of the northern and southern horns (If the Goat the transgressors in
Judah were fast arriving at
maturity. The Israelites
of that tribe had conquered their independence (if these two kingdoms by the
valour of the Maceabees and “ a little help “ from heaven ; and in alliance
with the Romans, the future breakers of their power, they were enabled to
maintain it under kings of the Levitical race after they had vanished from the
scene. By that rime, however, both people and government had become very
corrupt so that in about a hundred years after the establishment of the
Asmonean throne, when the transgressors were ripening, the Iron Men of Italy began
to appear as a distinct power to the north of Judea by the progressive incorporation of the
provinces of the northern horn with their more western empire. This advance of
the Roman power eastward was preparatory to the use Yahweh was going to make of
them in the crucifixion of Jesus, the punishment of Judah, and the abolition of
the Mosaic system, as predicted in the eighth chapter and the prophecy of the
Seventy Weeks. The disappearing of the northern horn for a long series of ages,
and the substituting of rite Roman power in its place, was represented to
Daniel by the doming of a Little Horn out of one of the four horns. After it
began to appeal in Syria, Daniel saw- it waxing exceeding great against the
south or Egypt, and; against the east or Euphrates, and against the glory of
the land, or Palestine, until it became dangerously formidable to the -army of
‘‘ the heavens “, or military power of Judah, which it at length subdued, as
evinced by the Jews boasting before Pilate, that theyhad -. no other king
than Caesar “.
Thus far the vision of the
Ram and Goat was for the purpose of introducing the Roman power in its relation
to Judah and the Holy Land; to special notice. By the absorption of the
northern kingdom into the Roman empire, a union was formed between it and the
GreacoBabylonian power of the
Seleueidie ; so that as these were heirs of Alexanders kingdom of
Babylon, the Romans inherited it from them.
Hence the power peculiar to this territory, styled ‘‘ the whole earth “,
may very properly be called the Romano-Greek Babylonian; or the Latino-Greek
Babylonian. This name is descriptive of it in its relation to the Holy Land, in
all its future phases until its utter destruction by Messiah the Prince
and his holy ones. The Ottoman nation is more Greek than Turkish, with but
little of the Latin element; but when the Latins and Greeks come to form a
confederacy under Russia as
Pg 26
the fragile medium of
combination, the Latino-Greek Babylonian power will be in full “ blossom “,
when the sour grape is ripening for the vintage (Isa. 18 : ; Rev. 14: 18). If
these things be apprehended, the reader will be prepared to read the destiny of
Russia and the nations in the solution of the Eastern Question; for, the
working of it out is the manifestation of the Gogian Image, or Latino-Greek
Babylonian power in consummation for its signal and final overthrow by the hand
of Deity.
In this vision of the Ram
and Goat the Babylonian power in its Roman manifestations is represented by the
Little Horn of the Goat, which is not to be confounded with the Little Horn
with Eyes and Mouth. At the time of the end, the powers signified by these are
confederated with the Goats Little Horn, and with it as their chief
invade the Holy Land and besiege Jerusalem, and take it.
The Little Horn of the
Goat power is described by Daniel as a king of fierce countenance, and
understanding an intricate tongue; whose power shall be mighty, but not in his
own virility: and he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper and work; and
shall destroy multitudes, and the people of the holy ones “. Speaking of the
same, Moses says to Israel, “Yahweh shall bring a nation against thee from far,
from the end of the earth, as the eagle flieth; a nation whose tongue thou
shalt not understand; a nation of fierce countenance, which shall not regard
the person of the old, nor show favour to the young. And he shall besiege thee
in all thy gates, until all thy high and fenced walls come down, wherein thou
trustiest throughout all thy land which Yahweh thine Elohim bath given thee “
(Deut. z8 : 49). “And through his policy also “, says Daniel, “ he shall cause
falsehood to prosper by his power; and because of his heart he shall do
proudly, and in prosperity shall destroy many: he shall also stand up against
the Commander of chieftains; but he shall be broken without help “.
Thus in its career it was
to be what is said of Daniels fourth beast, “ dreadful, and terrible,
and strong exceedingly “, and the special enemy of all pertaining to Judah. “It
waxed great “, says the prophet, “above the army of the heavens*, and it cast
down of the army and of the stars to the ground, and stamped upon them. Yea, he
magnified himself even against the Commander of the army; and by it the
evening-morning sacrifice was taken away; and the foundation of its temple
scattered (foundation of its temple or holy place. This rendering
accords with the saying, “There shall not be left here one stone upon another,
that shall not be thrown down” (Matt. 24: a). This would be a demolition of the
foundation, and therefore utter destruction). And an army was given against the
evening-morning
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The Jewish forces are very
fitly styled “ the army of the heavens “. These heavens were Yahweh, their
king, Michael, “the first of the chief princes ‘, styled also Michael Prince of
Israel, Gabriel, and other angel-princes, or Elohim, appointed of Deity to
watch over the affairs of the Jews in their relations with other powers,
and so forth. Israel belongs to these heavens which rule until they give place
to Messiah the prince and his holy ones, to whom God has promised to subject
all things terrestrial. Israel then belonging to these heavens, their military
forces are the army or hosts of the heavens, which must of course be sought for
on the arena of the Little Horn.
pg 27
sacrifice because of
transgression, and it cast down the truth to the ground; and it wrought and
prospered “. This was the beginning of divine indignation against Judah in the
first century of our era, which is not quite terminated yet.
When Daniel had the vision, the evening and morning sacrifice was suppressed, Jerusalem in ruins, and Judah in the province of Babylon. He was, however, fondly expecting the restoration of all these in about sixteen years (Dan. 9 : a) : but here was a new vision which taught him, that a breaking up of Judah by a more formidable enemy than the Chaldeans was to occur after their restoration from the Babylonish captivity. He saw that “ the Breaker up of Judah” was to exalt himself successfully against the long-expected Messiah; again to suppress the sacrifices, destroy the temple and city, abolish the Mosaic institutions, and scatter the power of the nation. In view of these events, what would become of all the promises made to the fathers of Israel? How long was deferred hope to make the hearts of believers sick? That the promises would certainly be fulfilled he had no doubt ; but then, as a lover of his people, he was appalled at the greatness of their rebellion, and at the calamities it would bring upon them in punishment for their crimes. The prospects of these things had a sickening effect upon the prophet. “ I fainted “, said he; “ and was sick for days “. He had been told how long the glory of Judah should be veiled in rayless night, and that deliverance should come at last: but the information only left him in blank amazement; for he says, “I was astonished at the thing seen, but none understood “ that is, at what time the scattering power would he broken, and the evening and morning sacrifice restored. Though ignorant of this, Daniel had consolation in knowing that at the end of the time appointed in the vision “ the Holy shall be avenged “
Pg28
Secondly, Until when should the
evening-morning sacrifice be
suppressed? And thirdly. When should Judah’s rebellion causing desolation, or which had
induced all these calamities =, have an end?
A fourth inquiry might be made
which would cover the whole ground , namely How long shall the treading down of
the Holy Land and the Jews continue? Now
the answer which
saluted Daniels eats shows that the precise point of time, w hen these things should be,
Cannot certainly , though it may be
inferentially, extracted from
the prophecy : because there is no numerical intimation
given of the commencement of the period named.
The answer recorded is. During and evening morning of the two thousand
four hundred ; then the holy shall be avenged “ . The meaning of this is that
there should be an evening morning
period of 2400 years, after the expiration of which the Holy
Land should be avenged. The Lord Jesus has paraphrased the reply in these
words: “Jerusalem (the holy) shall be
trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled “
(Luke 21:24)
When these have elapsed,
neither Turk, Frank, nor Russian, Greek or Latin, will
be permitted to desecrate the Holy
with their hateful presence and abominations the treading down will then
be terminated and the spoiler expelled that is, when judgment is given to the holy
ones at the expiration of the three times and a half, the holy land and city will be v indicated from violence
and injury.
The answer as it stands in the common
version has caused in -
superable difficulties to
all who have endeavoured to understand it. It
is rendered there, “Unto two thousand three hundred days : then
shall the sanctuary be cleansed “. But the original is not yahmim “days”; it
is erev boker, “, an evening -morning “. This departure from the usual mode of
expression w as not without good reason.
The reply was it effect, “ During a two thousand three hundred tahmid” that is, Judah’s host for its rebellion
against Yahweh was to become an evening
morning sacrifice until the end of a period of
2400 , years: As it is written, His anger is momentary; in his favor is life; weeping may endure for
an evening; but joy corneth in the morning” This is as true of Judah as of
Judahs king. .And again, “A lion out of the forest
(Nebuchadnezzar) shall slay them, and a wolf of the evenings shall spoil them,
•, a leopard shall watch over their cities (The Roman Wolf and Greek Leopard),
every one that goeth out thence shall be torn in pieces; because their
transgressions are many, and their backslidings are increased “ (Jer 5 : 6). This
was a evening sacrifice of the nation,
in which they eat the bread of affliction with bitter herbs, until the time of
the morning oblation come, the time of Jacobs trouble (Jer.30 : 7), when
they will he avenged in the great sacrifice of Bozrah in the day of Yahwehs
vengeance and in the year of recompenses
for the controversy of Zion (Isa. 34 : 6-8 ; 63 : 1-6 ; Ezek. 39 : 17).
During the suspension of the Mosaic
sacrifices Judah is the tahmid which bleeds for its rebellion against
the Lamb, slain in the evening and morning oblation from the foundation of the
world
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* I have for reason given
in Chronikon Hebraikon p 26 adopted the reading 2400 instead of 2300
Pg 29
But the phrase that has
caused the greatest difficulty is, Then shall the sanctuary be cleansed “.
Theologists bf the Gentiles have not perceived that the vision has no reference
to the Gentiles but as destroyers of Judah and the enemies of their- king. They
have therefore imagined that • - the sanctuary “ to be cleansed is the Gentile
church; as if any cleansing could make the thing called” the church “anything
but unclean. Assuming this, they has-c looked for the advent of Christ the year
after the 2300 th year according to the Common Version had expired; and have
called his appearing to burn up the world, and to place those whom they style ‘
the saints “ upon the purified earth as its sole occupants in glory, ‘ the
cleansing of the sanctuary “ Well, this is as reasonable an interpretation as
could be expected from people who deny
the restoration of the Jews, and believe in world burning at the coming of
Christ But so long as men hold on to such foolishness it is impossible for them
to understand the Bible, or to form any rational conclusion concerning the divine
predetermination respecting the issue of human affairs.
But, all speculations and
absurdities connected with this subject are most readily
extinguished by reference to the original. There we find that the worlds
crucibleized in the fires of world—burning theories do not exist -‘ Then shall
the sanctuary be cleansed “ was no part of the answer given in Daniels
hearing. The words he heard were we-nitzdak kodesh. The word kodesh is
not sanctuary “, but holy; designating what is holy connected with Judah, such
as the Holy City, called emphatically The Holy ‘‘ ; and the Holy Land. Then as
to nitzdak, rendered cleansed in the common version. This is not its
meaning. it signifies, to be vindicated from injury and violence, or to be
avenged. The word for to cleanse is tabar, and is used several times in
the sense of to cleanse Judea from the putrifying bodies of the slain in the
prophecy of the Autocrat of Russias overthrow in the breaking of the
Latino-Greek Babylonian power (Ezek. 39 : 12, 14, 9). • ‘Then the Holy shall be
avenged ‘‘, is the only proper rendering of which the original is susceptible
in this place. Let it be also observed, that this does not teach that the
avenging of the holy is to commence immediately the last of the 2,400
evening—morning is finished. it only
gives us to understand that when that period is passed, the next series of
events in relation to the Holy Land shall be the manifestation of things
necessary to ‘wrest it from the Gentiles, and to avenge it in their overthrow.
It must he evident to
every intelligent reader, that, before a country in the actual possession of
any enemy can be avenged for desolations current in twenty-four hundred years,
a situation of affairs must be created favouring its deliverance. This requires
time and the time provided in the case before us is styled, ‘‘ the time of the
end “, now current. Every year since 1840 the Holy Land has been mixing itself
up more and more with the policy of the Gentile Powers until at the present
time a situation of affairs in the east is nearly formed which will make its
possession by other powers than the Ottoman a matter of belligerent
dispute. Here are twenty-eight years
consumed in bringing affairs to their present crisis, which is not yet
Pg 30
quite ripe enough for
the accomplishment of the prediction,
“the Holy shall be avenged “. The overthrow of the Latino-Greek Babylonian
Dragon under the supremacy of God on the mountains of Israel is indispensable
to this most desirable consummation.
The reply to the question “
Until when?” did not state the anno mundi as the terminus, but the
development of a work. One step, however, was gained towards a solution of the
question, and that was, that whenever the beginning of the period might be, the
avenging of the holy would not be short of 2400 years afterwards. Daniel had
the vision B.C. 554, which is 2422 years
ago. This was a long period to look forward to the end of; and by no method of
calculation could he reduce it to less than 2,300 years. Happily for us, if of
Daniels class, we shall 1ive
after the termination of the vengeance. We believe we know its beginning
and end. “The vision is for many days “, whose commencement though not
numerically revealed to Daniel, may be stated inferentially as the third year
of Cyrus, B.C.540
Under the full and lively
expectation of the restoration of his people, Daniel confessed with deep and
sincere repentance the rebellion for which they had been righteously punished
through the Chaldeans; and besought Yahweh that he would turn away his anger
and fury from his city Jerusalem, his holy mountain; and cause his face to
shine upon his sanctuary ,mikdosh, then in ruins, for His own sake;
seeing that the people and the city were called by His name.
While he was yet speaking
in prayer, Gabriel appeared to him at the time of the evening sacrifice.
Fifteen or sixteen years before, Gabriel had been authorized to make Daniel
understand the vision concerning the tahmid, or evening-morning
sacrifice
(Dan. 8 :15)
31
But as we have seen, he
only accomplished this to a limited extent. He had left Daniel “astonished at
the vision, but none understood “. He saw the destruction of the people of the
holy ones ; the greatness of their destroyer’s power; his presumption in
contending in battle with their Commander in-Chief; and his final overthrow;
but of what was to occur in relation to Messiah the Prince, before the taking
away of the evening and morning sacrifice, and the casting down of the
foundation of the temple—of these things he had no understanding. Gabriel was
therefore sent a second time “ to make him skilful of understanding “,
that he might “ discern the word “ he then brought to him,
“and understand the thing seen (marah) “, in respect to the
evening-morning, or .tahmid, rendered “the daily “.
Having directed Daniels
attention to their last interview, Gabriel proceeded to declare “ the
word “ he had received, of which the following is a corrected version.
Seventy heptades have been
decreed* relatively to thy people and to thine Holy City, for finishing the
transgression, and for causing no cease from sin offerings ; and for covering
iniquity, and for causing to come in a righteousness of ages, and for sealing
the vision and prophet, and for anointing the Holy One of holy ones. Know therefore
and understand: from the issuing of a command for causing to return and for
building Jerusalem unto the Anointed Prince (shall be) seven heptades, and
sixty and two heptades : she shall return : and the broad wall and the breach
shall be built, even in the straitness of the times. And after the Sixty and
two heptades, the Anointed One shall be cut off, though nothing (will be) in
him; and the princes people who come in shall destroy the City and the
Holy, and the end thereof (shall be) with a sweeping away; and unto the end of
the war desolations are decreed.
“And he shall confirm a
covenant for many one heptade; and half of the heptade he shall cause to cease
sacrificing and offering
and because of an
overspreading of abominations (there shall be) a desolating even to destruction
: and that decreed shall be poured out upon the Desolator” (Dan. 9 : 24 27).
In the twenty fourth verse
Daniel learned that there were six particulars to become accomplished facts
before an army should be given to the Roman Greek Babylonian Little Horn,
against the evening and morning sacrifice for the suppression of it, and the
destruction of the holy
city and people, and the consequent abolition of the Mosaic law and
constitution. These important particulars may be thus ordinarily presented
1. The perfecting of Judahs
transgression;
2. The causing to cease
from sin-offerings;
~. The
covering of iniquity
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* The original is nekbthak,
and found only in this place in the Hebrew Scriptures ; more commonly in
Chaldee and Rabbinic; “properly “, says Gesenius,
to Cut off, and tropically,
to divide and so to determine, to decree “.
Pg 32
4. The bringing in a righteousness of ages
5. The
sealing the vision and prophet;
6. The
anointing the Holy One of holy tines.
In Chapter 8 the reason
assigned for the standing up of the king of a fierce countenance” against Judah
in the latter time of the northern and southern kingdoms of the Goat is, ‘‘ So
as to cause transgressors to fill up their measure “which I take to be
the meaning of kh hahthaim Iiapbpihim, rendered in the English
version, ‘‘ when the transgressors are come to the full “. This is not true in
fact. The transgressors in Judah had not filled up their measure in the latter
time of the reign of the kings of Syria and Egypt, when the Roman power stood
up in their place against Judah. This is
evident from the Lords denunciations in which he said to them a hundred
years after,” Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers, ye hypocrites “ Mat.
23 : 32). The Roman power w as allowed to
overshadow Judah as means of
bringing their rebellion against Yahweh to a head, or to perfect it, according
to Gabriel. Every reader of the apostolic writings must be familiar with the
way this was accomplished. The Lord Jesus appeared among them as “ THE HEIR “ of the
Kingdom and throne of David ; and they
said, “ Come, let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance “ (Matt. 21 : 38). They arraigned him before the
tribunal of the Little Horn on a charge of high treason against it, because he
claimed to be the King of the Jews, and therefore spoke against the imperial
rights of Caesar. But Pontius Pilate, the Horns representative in
Judea, apprehending no danger, would have acquitted him with release, knowing
that for envy they had delivered him. But he could prevail nothing ; for the
rebels cried out, saying, If thou let this man go thou art not Caesars
friend ; whosoever maketh himself a King, speaketh against Caesar“. “ Behold your King “
said the governor ‘‘,Away with him, aw ay with him “, they cried ; ‘‘
crucify him ! “ The astonished Pilate exclaimed, ‘ Shall crucify your
King “ But, ‘ the Chief Priest answered, W e have no
king hut Caesar “. Thus
was the first particular of Gabriels word accomplished. Judahs rebellion was
perfected within a few
hours of the expiration of the seventy times seven years from the
passover of the 20th year of the reign
of Artaxerxes, Ram king of Babylon.
2. The next thing was to cause to cease from sin
offerings. This
did not seem to put a stop
to the evening-morning sacrifice ; for that
was not effected till
about thirty five years after the end of the seventy heptades. It was to cause
them to be ceased from by those who should partake in the righteousness to be
brought in through the covering for iniquity.
We read of no more sin offering being presented by the apostles, who had
been made clean through the word spoken to them by Jesus ; nor did they enjoin
sin offerings upon those who received their teaching. “ By the “ Abrahamic or “ Second Will, they were sanctified through the
offering of the body of Jesus Christ
once “ ;for by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are
sanctified” ; so that, having thus obtained a permanent remission, “ no
more offering for sin” was needed. Hence they were
pg 33
superseded by Messiahs
sacrifice, though they continued to be offered by the rebels.
3. A third item to be accomplished before the
passing away of the seventy heptades, or periods of seven years, was the
covering of iniquity. The verb rendered thus is khahphar, to cover, or
overlay, to hide. Hence, khaphporeth, a cover, and therefore applied to
the cover of the Ark of the Testimony in the Most Holy Place of the Temple,
called the Propitiatory, because propitiation or expiation was made for sin by
sprinkling it with the blood of the sacrifices. It was also called the MERCY
SEAT. A good conscience is without shame
or fear. Transgression of law, or sin, converts a good conscience into a bad
one, and develops shame and fear. Before he sinned, Adams conscience
was good; he was naked, but not at all ashamed, or afraid of the presence of
the Elohim : but immediately after, his conscience being defiled, shame and
fear caused him to hide himself, because he was uncovered. This teaches us that
sin needs to be covered. Adam felt this,
and undertook to cover his own sin in the best way he could devise, being
ignorant of the manner in which sin is covered by divine appointment. But the
Lord God stripped him of his own device, which did not recognize the principle
of blood shedding in the covering of iniquity.
He taught Adam to shed the blood of a lamb, and to cover his nakedness
with its skin. This was the lamb slain at the foundation of the world, and
represented him who is the Lamb typically slain from the foundation of the
world .Adam and his wife were in this way clothed by Yahweh Elohim; and being
thus clothed, their iniquity was expiated or covered.
The only Sin Covering from
the Fall to the resurrection of Jesus the world had ever known, was typical ;
or a yearly covering of sin that represented the
covering foretold by
Gabriel. The patriarchs, prophets, and others, who Abrahamically believed the
things covenanted to the fathers, and were dead, had died with no other
covering for their sins than could be derived from the pouring out of the blood
of bulls and goats. But ‘ It is not possible that the blood of bulls and of
goats should take away sins “ (Heb. io : 4); their sins therefore
remained uncovered and unexpiated; and as “ the wages of sin is death “,
if the expiation of the seventy heptades had never been effected, they
would never have risen from the dead to eternal life. Hence, speaking of the
covering efficacy of Christs death, Paul says, For this cause he is the
Mediator of the New (or Abrahamic) Covenant, that by means of death FOR THE
REDEMPTION OF THE TRANSGRESSIONS UNDER THE FIRST COVENANT (the Law)
they which are called might receive the promise of the everlasting inheritance”
(Heb. 9 : 1: 5): and Isaiah says, “For the transgression of my people was he
stricken “. Thus, the death and resurrection of the Mediator, and therefore
Representative Testator, of the Covenant made with Abraham, brought it into
force; so that the already dead who had while living believed the things
promised in it, obtain a covering of their sins, the effect of which they will
experience after rising from the dead to possess them for the age.
Pg 34
4. If Messiah the Prince
had not been cut off for his people “a
righteousness of ages “, the fourth item of Gabriels word, could
not have been brought in. Faith in the things of the Kingdom could not have
been counted for righteousness to life in the future ages of glory without a
propitiatory or mercy seat, sprinkled with blood. The cutting off of Jesus
provided this indispensable kaphporeth, or cover for sin so that he
being slain and raised from the dead, the means of a sinners
justification, styled, “The righteousness of God “, was brought in or completed
within the period appointed.
Here then were the
victim and the covering provided by Yahweh
—-a victim of expiation
for the sins of the faithful; the faithful who believed the promises covenanted
to Abraham and David :—a covering garment to hide their sins in putting
on the victim by immersion into his name. Thus invested or clothed upon, they
are in Christ, who of God becomes to them thus, “ wisdom, and righteousness,
and sanctification, and redemption “.
When these things should
be effected, sin-offerings, and the evening-morning sacrifices, which were
merely typical, could well be dispensed with. In relation then to the taking
away of the tahmid, and the destruction of the holy city, Daniel would
perceive their accomplishment posterior to the fulness of the seventy heptades
of years. Hence all those speculations that make Antiochus the Little Horn, and
his oppression of the Jews, and defilement of the temple, and so forth, the
fulfilment of chapter 8;11,23,24, are entirely inadmissible, and altogether
unworthy of a grave or respectful attention.
5 The fifth particular to
come to pass before the passing away of the heptades was “the sealing of the
vision and prophet “. We are informed that in the early days of Samuel, “The
word of Yahweh was precious “, for there was no open vision; and in Jeremiah it
is said, “They speak a vision of their own heart “. To speak the word of the
Lord is for a prophet to speak what the Lord impresses upon his brain. ‘We
perceive before we speak; hence, to reveal our perceptions is to speak what we
see, or, to speak a vision. When a man speaks impressions made upon him by the
Lord, and the Lord confirms what he speaks, he speaks “an open vision “, and
the confirmation is the sealing of it. “Bind together the testimony; seal
instruction among my disciples.” This was done in the ministrations of the Lord
Jesus. He spoke an open vision, instructing his disciples; and his instructions
the Father sealed, by the signs and wonders that accompanied them.
In sealing the vision of
the seventieth heptade, the prophet by whom the vision was spoken, was sealed
likewise. The confirmation of the vision was the confirmation of its prophet
also. “Believe me” said Jesus, “for the works sake.” In another place,
he says, “The Father himself, who hath sent me, hath borne witness of me. Have
ye never heard his voice nor seen his form? “—the voice from the excellent
glory, and the form of the dove? Multitudes had seen this, and were compelled
to say,” This is of a truth that prophet that should come into the world “. The
sealing of the vision and the prophet
Pg 35
go together, and are
therefore placed together in Gabriels word; and have unquestionable
reference to Jesus, who speaking of himself says, “ Him has the Father sealed
“.
6. The sixth and last of
Gabriels specifications in this verse is the anointing the Holy One of
holy ones. This personage was the Messiah, a name signifying an anointed one.
There have been many anointed ones, but the one here referred to was to be
pee-eminently such ; and to be anointed within the limits of the seventieth
heptade; that is, some time between the end of the sixty-ninth and the end of
the seventieth, as appears from verse 25
Believing that Jesus is Messiah the Prince, we are at no loss where to
place the anointing. Peter says, “ God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy
Spirit and with power” ; and Luke, after relating the particulars concerning
it, says, that “Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age” (Luke 3:
23; Acts io : 38). This fixes the baptism and anointing at three years and a
few months before the crucifixion. Thus, “God anointed him with the oil of
gladness above his associates” (Psa. 45: 6). He is therefore the Holy
One of those holy associates, or the Holy One of holy ones, as I have rendered
the text; the Most Holy, or Holiest of All.
Having specified these six
things to be accomplished before the expiration of the seventy heptades,
Gabriel proceeded to specify the commencement of them. He stated that to Mashiach
Nahgid, the Anointed Prince, should be “ seven heptades, and three-score
and two heptades “, that is, sixty-nine. This period extended to the
proclamation of Messiah the Prince being at hand; that is, to the beginning of
Johns preaching, who said that he came baptizing in water that he might
be made manifest to Israel
(John 1
:31), which manifestation is styled “ his coming” (Acts 13;24) .
Sixty-nine heptades of years, calculated from this announcement, gives 483
years and nine months ; that is, it carries us up to the twentieth year of the
reign of Artaxerxes, Persian King of Babylon, when Nehemiah, his cup bearer,
received commandment to go and restore and build Jerusalem, and set up the
wall. How Nehemiah executed this work is
fully detailed in the portion of scripture that passes by his name.
This commandment of
Artaxerxes did not issue till 114 years after Gabriels visit to Daniel,
who might still be ignorant of the commencement of the “ many days “ of the
vision he had seen in the third year of Belshazzars reign. He would not
understand that the 2400 and the seventy
Heptades began at the issuing of the commandment; when that authorization for
the restitution of Jerusalem and the Wall should be granted, he could not, and,
it is probable, that even Gabriel himself was unable to tell. All they knew
was, that it would be 483 years to the proclamation of repentance, because
Messiah the Prince was in the midst of Israel, and about to appear; but whether
483 years from the first year of Cyrus, or from more than a hundred years
afterwards, they did not know.
It may be remarked, here,
that there were four decrees, or commands, promulgated by kings of the
Ram Dynasty, in favour of Judah and Jerusalem. The first was in the first year
of Cyrus, two years after
Pg 36
Gabriels visit ;
and authorized the Jews to return to Palestine and rebuild the temple (Ezra 1).
This was seventy years after Jehoiakim’s rebellion against Nebuchadnezzar, in
the first of Cyruss sole reign, in B.C 54 0. .
The second decree (Ezra 6
: 1) was issued by Darius the Persian, eighteen years after; that is, in the
second of his reign, enforcing that of
Cyrus, being seventy years from the burning of the temple, in the 19 th
of Nebuehadne7zar, BC 592 The temple was finished four years afterwards, in the
sixth of his reign (Ezra 6 : 1:15), answering to seventy years from tile
twenty-third of Nebuchadnezzar, when 745
persons were carried captive to Babylon.
The third decree was
promulgated in the 7th (If Artaxerxes, for the restoration of the
Commonwealth of Judah (Ezra 7 : 7, I i-z6). This was fifty-three years after
the temple was finished, and seventy-one from the decree of Cyrus B.C. 469.
The fourth decree was
thirteen years after, in the 20th of
Artaxerxes, B.C. 456 years and 9
months. This was for the building of the broad wall and the setting up of the
gates of Jerusalem (Neh. 2:1).
From these chronological
data the reader will perceive that the last decree is the only one from which
the Seventy Heptades of the 2,400 evening and morning, or day of Judahs
troubles can reasonably be commenced; for the others all fall short of the
proclamation of “the King of the Heavens having approached” by .many years The
20 th of Artaxerxes may, therefore, be regarded as the established terminus
a quo, or point of departure in the calculation of the time.
It is proper, however, to
mention that the usual reckoning of the B.C., answering to the 20 th
Artaxerxes, is 445 years. This would make the end of the 69 heptades five years
after the crucifixion; and removing this event seven years later, as happening
at the end of the 7oth heptade. But by reference to my chronology at
the end of Eureka, Vol. II., it
will be found that the numbers indicating the duration of the reigns placed
opposite the kings, and which I culled out of Rollins History, between
the 20 th Artaxerxes and the birth of Jesus, make exactly 455 years and 9
months. From the birth to the baptism (on the authority of Luke), was 30 years,
making 485 and 9 months. This was 2
years and 9 months after the end of the 69th Heptade; and
consequently so far advanced into the seventieth week. But the common reckoning
is flagrantly erroneous in divers places, and of no authority where critical
accuracy is desired.
Having indicated the
beginning and ending of the 69 heptades, and divided them into successive
portions of seven heptades and sixty-two heptades, Gabriel informed Daniel that
the Messiah should be cut off after the sixty-two heptades had passed away.
But, at this part of the revelation he did not tell him how soon after their
termination the cutting off should transpire. He informed him, furthermore,
that after the cutting off, destruction should come upon the City and the Holy
by a people of the Prince, and that at the end of the destruction there should
be a flood of evil, and unto an end of the war desolations were decreed. The
cutting off, the destruction, and the desolations, were consecutive events,
but not immediately so. Between
Pg 37
the cutting off of Messiah
and the destruction of the City and Holy ss crc about thirty eight years, and
between the citys overthrow and the war of the Romans against
Barcochebas, was upwards of forty. This last war completely prostrated them.
They had massacred hundreds of thousands of Greeks and Egyptians in cold blood;
at length the Little Horn “ stamped upon them “, after causing a loss to
Judah of 580,000 on the field of battle in two years.
Having extended Daniels
view to the destruction of the people of the Saints, by the Little Horn
power (Dan. 8 24), that is, by the host or army that ssas gisen
to it (Dan. 8 i r) by the Prince, or Messiah (Matt. 22 7), against the rebels
and the tabmid, Gabriel recalled his attention to the last of the
Seventy Heptades ; and informed him what the work was that should be
accomplished by the Prince in the course of that seven years, from 483 to 490
of the period. “ He shall confirm a cos enant for many in the course of
one heptade; and half of the heptade he shall cause to cease* sacrificing and
offering “. The covenant to be confirmed was the Nesv, or Abrahamic,
Covenant. This had been t~picaIIy confirmed of God, concerning Christ,
430 years before the night of the departure from Egypt. Abrahams
sacrifices which were consumed by fire from heaven, represented, or pointed to,
the cutting off of Messiah, the Prince, as the sacrifice, syhose blood
is the blood of the Covenant, “shed for many”. On the night on which he was
betrayed, while eating the Passover with his disetples, Jesus said, “ I
even I covenant for you, as my Father hath covenanted for me, a kingdom ; that
ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and may sit upon
thrones, judging the Tss else ‘rribes of Israel “ (Luke ar : 29 30). He
was made a covenant in confirmation of this promise, in being cut off as an
expiation for the sins of Abraham and his heirs; and in so dying, to bring the
covenant mamle for them into force. That covenant, or will, was like all other
tsiils, svhieh are of no force while the testator liveth. Messiah, the
Prince, being the Mediatorial Testator, Yahwehs representative in the
affair, was the confirmer of the covenant for its many heirs ;
for if he had not voluntarily surrendered himself to death, all the work of the
previous seven years would have been null and void. In dying and rising again
he made it sure, having dedicated it with his blood. This is, therefore, the
antitypical blood of the Abrahamic covenant, to the things of which all are
entitled who believe them, and whose hearts have been sprinkled with it. It is
for them the Prince confirmed the covenant with his own blood. They are the “
many” referred to by Gabriel—Daniel, and the prophets, and so forth, among
the number. “I will give thee “, saith Yahweh, in prophecy to his Son, “
fur a covenant of the people, to establish the land, to cause to possess
the desolate estates “ (Isa. 49 8). The promise of this gift was
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Zevath, “that which is offered in sacrifice “, from ~ehvacb,
“to slaughter
This verb
is not used of the priests as slaughtering victims in sacrifice; but of
0515 private person’.s offering sacrifice at their own cost.” So says Gesenius.
Peters doctrine on Pentecost caused 3,000 to cease from sacrifices and
offerings as worshippers but the priests continued sacrificing victims till the
destruction of the temple by Titus A.D. 70.
Pg 38
redeemed in the gift of a
Son to Israel ([sa. 9 : 6), and the acceptance of him as the covenant purifier
of his brethren. The covenant being confirmed, then, the land promised to
Abraham and his Seed, and to all in them, will assuredly become the dwelling
place of glory, and they will possess it with all that is requisite to make it
the inheritance of the saints in light “.
The phrase khalzi hasshahvua is very incorrectly rendered “
in the midst of the week “ in the English version. It is the accusative of time
how long, and not a precise point of time. Khat7i signifies
one half, or one division of the whole seven years.
. Daniel was not informed
which of the equal divisions of the last heptade was to witness the desisting
from sacrifice and oblation, by divine authority. He might infer that it would
be the end of the latter half of the heptade, as the causing to desist w as the
last incident revealed, included in the whole seventy sevens, or heptacles of
years. He might conclude that Messiah, the Prince, would not cause to desist
from sacrifice and oblation till a covering were made for iniquity, and the
righteousness of ages were brought in. This conclusion would have been correct;
still he was left to inference, as Gabriel did not satisfy him on the
point. We, however, are not left to inference.
The prediction being long since an accomplished fact, we know that the khat7i
referred to is the latter part of the seventieth heptade, and on the last
day thereof, that is, of the crucifixion, which was exactly 490 years, or
Seventy Heptades, from the month Nisan of the 20th of Artaxerxes-,, B.C. 456.
The verb shahvath, rendered
cause to cease in the common version, signifies to desist as well
as to cease. The common rendering has puzzled all who have attempted an
interpretation of the text. Some have assumed that the Prince who sends his
army to destroy the city is Titus ; others, that he is Antiochus : and that
consequently, as no personage is introduced into the text after him, Titus, or
Antiochus, is the confirmer of the covenant, and the causer of the sacrifice
and oblation to cease, when they took away the daily. Moses Stuart, that Prince
of Blind Guides, says, it ss as Antiochus dictated the firm league between
himself and the Jewish apostates “ ! This is his interpretation of” He shall confirm
a covenant for many “. But I will not waste time, ink, and paper, in refuting
such nonsense; I will only add, that he says, Antinchus caused the sacrifice
and the oblation to cease by violence over 160 years before Christ; while
others affirm that Titus did it 73 years after his birth. These opinions result
from a supposition, that causing the sacrifice and oblation to cease is the
same thing as taking away the daily. But
as we have seen, they are totally different
events. The former was to happen within the 490 years while for the latter, no
man knew the day and hour, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the
Son, but the Father “ (Mark 13 32). Jesus, the Prince of the future kings of
the earth, causing to cease from sacrifice and oblation is intelligible, in
keeping with the time, and with the doctrine of the apostles, through which he
caused all his disciples no longer to seek expiation and righteousness by the
law and institutions of Moses.
pg 39
A doctrine being introduced which was
calculated to cause those of Judah, who received it, to cease from sacrificing
and offering, the seventy sevens of years were fully accomplished. What now
remained were the “days of vengeance, that all things which were written might
be fulfilled” (Luke 21:22). The vengeance was “the judgment to come” on Judah,
because of their having perfected their rebellion in rejecting Jesus as their
king, and putting him to death. The city and the holy nation, their
constitution and country, were to be desolated by an overspreading destruction,
which was to prevail without mitigation until the end of the 2400 , after which
preparation would be made for the avenging of the holy. This decree is
expressed in those words of Gabriel, which have so puzzled and confounded all
the critics, contained in the last verse of the ninth chapter. i will quote
them as they ought to read: “And because of an overspreading of abominations
there shall be a desolating even to destruction, and that decreed shall be
poured out upon the desolator “. The things to be destroyed when the desolation
should be consummated were the people and holy city; and the Desolator, the
“king of fierce countenance, who shall stand up against the sar .sahrim “,
or the Commander-in-Chief of Judah, shall be broken by him, and so come to his
end, with none to help him in a time of trouble such as never was since there
was a nation to that same time “(Dan. 8 : 23-25 ; 10 : 45 12:1)
Since the “ days of vengeance” which came upon Judah
thirty-eight years after the ending of the seventy weeks, various “aborninations”
have rested like a kenaph upon the land. These have all been of a
desolating character, such as the Romano-Greek, Persian, Saracen, and Ottoman
abominations. Hence they have been kenaph shi kkut cim, an overspreading
of abominations, meshomaim, making desolate. The Holy is under this
covering still. The 1290 years of
abomination, the greater part of which has been Moslem, have passed away; and
“that decreed” has been “pouring out, upon its desolator “, as Gabriel
foretold. The Turk is the desolator pertaining to the Moslem abomination that
still overspreads the Holy Land; and the day of his evaporation has arrived.
The sixth vial has been pouring out upon him since 1820, and is visibly pouring
upon him at this juncture. But when he goes down to the sides of the pit, the
Russianized Latino Greek Babylonian power will invade the land under Gog, the
king of the north, and encamp against the Holy Mountain. The consummating
judgments of the sixth vial will then fall upon him as the latter day
representative of the Little Horn of the Goat. His fate is therefore that of
the fierce king, as Daniel hath described it.
Pg 40
Dragon-power, with
judgment given to them for its destruction but the military relation they were
to sustain towards mine another in the work, though it might be inferred, was
not expressed. In the chapter before us, however, this deficiency is supplied :
the Sun of ‘Man is styled Commander-in-Chief; the holy ones, Commanders and
their people, the army of the heavens. Thus, a military power is prospectively
prepared for the work of destroying the armies of the Gentiles when, as in the
days of Joshua, Israel shall be commissioned to go up and possess the Holy
Land, and to subdue the kingdoms of the west.
The Bible is full of
testimony to this effect, which in the New Testament is pictorially
illustrated. There the Commander in-Chief is represented as a King and General
sitting a white horse, clothed with a vesture dipped in blood, and a sharp sw
ord going out of his mouth, that with it he should smite the nations. This
symbol is declared to be representative of the King of kings, and Lord of lords, who judges and makes war in righteousness, and treads the winepress of
the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God (Res . 19 ii i6). In another chapter .
he is styled The Lamb “. Speaking if the papal kings of the west, the
Spirit says : ‘‘ These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall
overcome them : for he is Lord of lords and King of kings “ (Rev. 17 :
14). As to the person represented by the Lamb, he is defined as one that had
been slain, and had redeemed his companion kings and lords from among Israel
and the nations (Rev. 5:6-10).
No person intelligent in the Scriptures can
deny that these smbols are representative 0f Jesus Christ in the character
of a Royal MIilitary Commander tn active service against the armies, of
the Gentiles. The white horse that hears the Conquering Hero is Judah ; and the ‘ sword going forth
from his mouth “ is Ephraim, or
the Ten Tribes of Israel with
them ; as is proved by the following testimonies ‘‘ Yahweh of armies hath
visited the house of Judah, and hath made them as his ,goodly horse in
the battle : and they shall he as mighty men who tread down their enemies in
the mire of the streets in the battle ; and they shall fight, because Yahweh
it with them “ (Zech. 10 : 3-5).
Israel is Yahwehs inheritance, therefore thus saith Yahweh, ‘ Thou art
my battle-axe and weapons of war; for with thee will I break in pieces
the nations, and with thee will I destroy kingdoms ; with thee will I break in
pieces captains anti rulers “ (Jer. 51 : 19-23). “ Behold, I will
make thee a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth; thou shalt thresh the
mountains, and beat them small, anti shalt make the hills as chaff. Thou shalt
fan them, and the wind shall carry them away, and the whirlwind shall scatter
them : and thou shalt rejoice in Yahweh, and shalt glory in the Holy One of
Israel” (Isa. 41 :15 16). “I will render double unto thee when I have bent
Judah for me, filled the (Judah) bow with Ephraim (as the arrow), and raised up
thy sons, 0 Zion, against thy sons, 0 Greece, and made thee (Zion) as the
sword of a mighty man. And Yahweh shall be seen over them, and his arrow
(Ephraim) shall go forth as the lightning: and Adonai Yahweh shall blow the
trumpet, and shall go forth as whirlwinds of the south “ (Zech. 9 :
13-j4).
Pg 41
In these testimonies there
are things affirmed that never have come
to pass since they were written. Judah has never been since then Yahwehs
goodly horse in the battle, fighting because He was with them, and seen over
them. Instead of Israel breaking in pieces the nations, destroying kingdoms,
and reducing the empires of the Gentiles to chaff, they have been themselves
the broken and destroyed. What is here
testified remains to be accomplished in the simultaneous breaking to pieces of
the gold, the silver, the brass, the iron, and the clay of Nebuchadnezzars
Image; and the reducing them to the
likeness of the chaff of
the summer threshing floors : and in the overcoming of the armies of the Beast
and the kings of the Latino Greek dominion. In this war, which will be the last
on the Babylonian earth for a thousand years, ‘ Israel will do valiantly “ (Num.
24 :28), as the goodly horse and sword of the Mighty One, as represented the
apocalypse of John,
The commandeers of whom
the Lord Jesus is the royal chief, are represented as his body-guards, or
staff, in the apocalyptic vision. They are there styled ta strateumata, the
body guards in the heaven that follow him upon white horses, clothed in fine
linen, white and clean “.
As they are his associate
commanders of Judah, their kings goodly horse, they are fitly
represented as all riding horses similar to his. The Commander in-Chiefs vesture is
dipped in human blood ; because before the things represented in the nineteenth
chapter, he had trodden the winepress alone, and stained all his raiment at
Bozrah (Isa. 63:1-4), when he shatters the Russo-Gogian Image into fragmental
parts,
previous
to ‘‘ breaking them to pieces together ‘‘. After the overthrow at Bozrah, he prepares
to subdue the West ; and in this preparation he summons his soldiery to the
conflict under his companions in arms his joint commanders of Israel. Until the
battle of Bozrah, their vestments are unstained with the blood of the enemy,
and therefore represented simply as emblematic of their character. To be
clothed in “ fine linen, white and clean “, is significant of the wearers
righteousness. This is the
interpretation put upon the symbolic raiment in the eighth verse of this
chapter; for, speaking of these holy ones as constituents of the Bride ready
for union with the Lamb, it is there written : “ To her was granted that
she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white : for the fine linen is
(or represents) the righteousness of the holy ones “. They therefore who are
represented as clothed with this figurative raiment are the holy ones spoken of
in Daniel; and prepared to go forth with Jesus as the One Yahweh, to judge and
make war in righteousness. They are the lords, and kings of whom he is the Lord
and King—” the called, and chosen, and faithful that are with him “ (Rev.
17 : 14) ; the “ redeemed from among men, who follow him whithersoever
he goeth” (Rev. 14:1-5).
In the ninth of Daniel, as
we have seen, this great commander of heavens forces against the
Russianized Greaco-Latin confederacy occupying the Holy Land, is styled the
Holy One of holy ones, which is equivalent to the Most Holy of them. He was to
be anointed by the Spirit of Yahweh, which was done at his baptism in the
Jordan. He
Pg 42
was therefore the Anointed
Most Holy One of the Father, who had constituted him the heir of the throne of
His Kingdom of Israel. For this cause he is styled mahshiach nahgid, the
anointed prince royal or as in the common version , Messiah the Prince.. In the
twenty sixth s verse in one sentence he
is termed the ‘Anointed One ; and in another simply nahgid prince royal.
In the Syriac version, the anointed prince royal“ is expressed by “ the
Anointed One the King “, as though it were melekh instead nahgid.
But, I conceive, that there is all the difference between me!ekh and
nakgid as that existing between the heir apparent and the king upon his
throne. Till the ‘Anointed One ascends the throne one of his father David he is Prince Royal, or king expectant, not
king in fact, It must be so ; for a melekb, or king, is one w0ho
reigns, and not one who expects to reign. This distinction is maintained by
Jesus himself in the twenty fifth of Matthew. In the thirty firsts
verse of that chapter, when speaking of his appearing in glory to sit upon the
throne of his glory , he styles
himself simply ‘‘ the Son of Man “ ;
but when he possesses that throne, and invites the blessed of the Father to
occupy the kingdom in verse 34 he
terms himself the king
But, if Sar means
‘‘ prince “, in the sense in which the Son of Man is a Prince royal, as
the common version has it for nahgid,
nahsi, as well as Sar, why is he not styled the anointed Sar ? If
the revelator did not intend to convey distinct ideas concerning the Son
of Man, I do not see why these three
words should be all applied to him. king
James translators discerned no
reason for the employment of these various
words ; as they
rendered them all by the one word, ‘‘ Prince ‘‘. But I see no
reason to follow their example. I take it rather that there was design the
variety ; each word being adapted to the Son of Man in the part he was
represented as enacting at the time ; thus, while breaking the Russo- Gogian
confederacy he is called Sar ; when making expiation for iniquity his military, character is
veiled, and he is styled the anointed most holy one, or nahgid; and
when elevated to the throne in Israel, he is termed nahsi
so that Sar anointed becomes a nahgid, and a nahgid
elevated to his throne a nahsi.
This verbal criticism is
in harmony with after developments. ‘At the end if the sixty nine heptades, or
485 years, John the immerser heralded
the approaching manifestation of a royal personage a nahgid not of a
military commander , or Sar, but of the future majesty of
the kingdom of the heavens. The Son
of Man was to appear as the rightful
claimant of Davids throne and the Holy Land ; that is, to establish
his right to it ; not to gather Israel to his standard at that time for a
contest with the Latino- Greek Little Horn, then “ waxed exceeding great “. The
time had not come for that, as he told Pontius Pilate. He came, not only to
prove his claim, but to bring the Abrahamic Covenant into force by his death and resurrection ; that by
virtue of it he might afterwards rightfully lay hold if the sovereignty of
Israel anti the nations, and compel the latter by the edge of the sword to
recognize him as king ‘of all the earth. No other conqueror by whom he will
have a been preceded since the days of Nimrod will have been able to prove
his right to universal dominion by
virtue if a legal
Pg 43
instrument divinely
attested and confirmed. Their right has been derived from their own swords; and
they have reigned on the principle that “ might is right; therefore keep
who can “. Israels Commander-in-Chief claims all existing dominions by
right derived from the Deity; and proclaims his intention to meet them upon
their own principle, and laying hold upon them with a strong arm, to wrest from
them their thrones, and to keep them by his might.
Had Gabriel told Daniel
that it should be 483 years to the Anointed One, the Sar, he would perhaps have
expected him in the capacity of a military chieftain within the 490 years; and
then, if Gabriel had added, the Anointed One shall be cut off, or “ slain
“, as the Syriac has it, he might have inferred, that he would he slain
in battle: but when he heard that he was to be put to death as prince royal, he
would understand that it was in connection with the question of his right to
the royalty, as we learn it really was from the testimony of Matthew, Mark,
Luke, and John. He was put to death as prince royal, not as Sar—as heir
of David, and therefore Israel and Judahs king.
Speaking of the prince,
Gabriel said, “ The people of the prince that shall come shall destroy
the city and the holy “. This refers to the “ days of vengeance “, or
“ judgment to come “, preached by the apostles ; and referred to
by Jesus when he apostrophized the hypo critical Scribes and Pharisees, saying,
“ Ye are the children of them who killed the prophets. Fill up then the
measure of your fathers. Serpents, generation of vipers, how can. ye escape
from the judgment of Hinnoms Vale ? “ (Matt. z~ : z9_33). Many
of those who very properly reject the notion of the book of Daniel revealing
nothing beyond the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes, as erroneously imagine that “
the prince “ was Titus the Roman general, whose troops destroyed the
holy, and took away the daily, and cast down the truth, Mosaically typified, to
the ground But Titus was certainly not the prince. He was Sar of the
Gentile forces, not a nahgid; and no reason exists why this should be
applied to any other person than the Anointed Prince Royal referred to in the
context. This was the prince, and the Romans were his people in the same sense
in which Nebuchadnezzar and the Chaldees were the Deitys. When Yahweh
sent Nebuchadnezzar and his forces against Judah and other nations to destroy
them for their wickedness, they were the sword of Yahweh. Speaking of this
conqueror, he styles him, “Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant”: and
in overthrowing Tyre, Yahweh says, “ The Chaldeans wrought for me” ; and
in their operations against Egypt, he says, “ I will strengthen the arms
of the king of Babylon, and put my sword in his hands “. It was so with
the Romans, although they knew it not. They wrought for the Prince Royal of
Israel against rebellious Judah, who refused to acknowledge him as their king.
See the parable comparing the kingdom of the heavens to a certain king who
makes a marriage for his son. After he is raised from the dead, messengers are
sent to invite Judah to the marriage; but they took his servants and slew them.
“But when the king heard thereof he was wroth; and he sent forth his armies,
and destroyed those murderers, and burned their city” (Matt. 22 : 7).
44
‘What armies were these
Jesus styles the kings armies ~ There is but one answer that can be
given they were the Royal Fathers, and therefore also the Prince Royal,
his Sons ; or in the words of the man Gabriel, “ the people of the
Prince “. This explains the meaning of an army being given to the Little Horn
of the Goat against the evening-morning sacrifice “. The Prince put them in
commission for that work ; and no doubt, though invisible, superintended the
operations of the siege. Hence the coming if the Roman eagles against Judahs
carcass (Deut. z8 : 26), as Moses had predicted (Matt. 24 27 z8 ; Deut. z8 :
so), was also the coming (Matt. 10 : 23), though omit the appearing, of the Sun
of Man. If the prince had not given the army against the city, the Roman eagles
would have been stripped of all their feathers ; and have met with a fate not
less disastrous than that of the Assyrians of
old
The last place in which
Messiah is mentioned in Daniel is where he is styled ‘‘ Michael the great
prince “ (Dan. 12 : 1) Here the word is Sar, not nahgid, as
might be expected ; seeing that the passage speaks of the time when the Russianized-Latino Greek confederacy is
to be broken on the mountains of Israel by Judahs king. The phrase
would have been better rendered ‘ Michael the great Commander “, whose
name well expresses his omnipotence, signifying, ‘‘ Who like to Power?
“. Because Gabriel in the tenth of Daniel speaks of a contemporary angel whom
he calls Michael, some there are who think that Michael the great Commander is
he. But the identity of name is no proof that the same person is referred to in
both places. Michael who aided the
Angel-Prince of the kingdom of Persia was no doubt the angel-Sar Yahweh appointed over Israel
in the days of Moses, concerning whom he said, “ Beware of him, and obey
his voice; fort my name (or divine
power) is in him “ (Exod. 23: 20-21). But in the time e of trouble this
angel is superseded by Jesus, who is the great power of Deity,, and therefore
styled ,Michael the great commander. “.
pg 45
had at length become so
acute, that he mourned for its gratification during three whole weeks.
At the end of that period,
while near the Tigris, a man appeared to him whose appearance was
representative of the perfect Prince Royal in glory. He saw him whom he styles “
a certain man “, in the third year of Cyrus, the year of his
decease, now 2,407 tears ago (Dan. I : 21 ; 10
: I- 5). That ‘‘ certain man “ represented to him,
was what hat Paul styles in (Eph. 4 : 4
I : 22 23), the ‘ One Body, the Ecclesia “ of which Christ is ‘‘ the
Head “. Daniel describes this body corporate of the quickened just ones, as “
a man clothed in linen, whose loins werc girded with fine gold of Uphaz his
body also like the beryl, and his face as the appearance of lightning, and his
eyes as lamps of fire, anti his arms and his feet like in colour to polished
brass, and the voice of his words like the voice of a multitude “. Of this
host, Daniel was assured he should be one, “ at the end of 1335 days “
which would reach from a given event to the epoch of resurrection ‘‘ in the
latter clays “. Now, while contemplating this great vision “, he was subjected to an operation
indicative of his approaching decease; and of the process he and others would
have to go through, in passing from the death sleep of Sheol, to the
firmamental and enduring brightness of the kingdom.
The decease he was about
to accomplish, and which he speaks of as though he were already in the dust of
death, is specified in the words, ‘‘ I was left alone, and there remained no
strength in me ; for my vigor was turned in me into corruption, and I retained
no strength. Then was I in a deep sleep on my face, and my face upon the earth.
I was dumb nor is breath left in me “. Now, after remaining thus an indefinite
period, the time arrived for him to awake from this death sleep ; and to
be raised front his recumbent position on the ground. He did not make a
sudden and vigorous leap to an upright position in which he was fearless,
fluent of speech, corruptionless, and strong, as some imagine the dead to be,
when they dream of their leaping forth incorruptible and immortal, No, he had
to progress by stages from his proneness in corruption, to a state of
confidence and power. In the first stage of the process, a hand touched
him. This was the application of power for his resuscitation. Its effect was
partial, not complete. It gave him existence; but it was not vigorous for it
only placed him upon his knees and the palms of his hands ; and in a state of
mind apparently expressed by the weird quandary. He was awake, but in
perplexity, not knowing what move to make; he was, however, relieved of this,
by being invited to stand upon his feet “. Although he was addressed as “ a
man greatly beloved “, he arose from his hands and knees with fear and
trembling.
I stood “, said he,
trembling “.
Daniel was now in the second
stage (if the process. Standing upright, he was the subject of anastasts,
or ‘ standing up”; but he was nevertheless in trembling and fear : and
still tending earthward, and speechless. But, he was bidden not to fear; and
was further encouraged by assurances of good, based upon his previous devotion
to the Word, and his conduct before God. This judicial conference,
Pg
46
though it would gladden
the heart of Daniel, did not of itself impart vigour to his constitution. He
was still earthward and speechless; fur after the words of comfort were spoken,
he says, “I set my face earthward (pahnai art~ah) and I was dumb “.
He had now arrived at the third
stage in which he was to be quickened into courageousness,
tranquillity, and strength; by which he might “ stand in his lot at the
end of the days “, and shine a star of great brilliancy in the
constellations of the “New Heavens “, in which alone righteousness shall
reign. This quickening is accomplished by one like the similitude of the sons
of men “, touching him, In this way he alludes to Jesus, then unborn,
who, in “ the time of the dead “, shall touch him with spirit
power ; and impart to him the peace, wisdom, and potency of incorruptibility
and life. His ability to speak, and so to give account of himself in regard to
his existence, had been restored to him in the second stage by the touching of
his lips; but this did not make him strong “, nor give him ‘ peace “.
It only enabled him to confess his condition of utter feebleness. It remained,
therefore, that there should be a greater impartation of power by which his
whole man should be strengthened. He was thus touched a second time by the same
appearance of a man” not upon the lips, but upon the body. “ He came
again, and touched me; and said, 0 man greatly beloved, fear not: peace be unto
thee; be strong, yea, be strong. And when he had spoken unto me, I was
strengthened “.
Such was the preface,
dramatically exhibited, of a prophecy revealing to Daniel the awakening and
recompensing of sleepers in the dust in “ the time of the end “. It was
the last of his visions, and the greatest of them all; because it culminated in
“ the Apocalypse of the Sons of the Deity” (Rum. 8 : 19). In the vision
John had in Patmos, a like instance occurs in Rev. II : i, in which a prophecy
ending in resurrection and judgment (verses i8, 19) is perfected by the
dramatic rising of the prophet himself. The things seen by Daniel in his last
vision began to transpire in the first year 0f Darius the Mede “,
which was two years before he had the vision ; and are strewn along a
period reaching “ to the time of the end “, in which is the
resurrection of himself and people. It is an amplification of what he
saw in the third year of Belshazzar, when he was also a subject of symbolic
resurrection (8 : 18) ; and for the same reason. From the tenth chapter to the
end of his book is one continuous record of “that which is noted in the
scripture of truth “.
‘When Daniel recovered
from the effects of this great sight “, the glorious looking personage
informed him that he was sent to him to answer to his desire; and that his
mission was to make him understand what should befall his people in the latter
days ; because the vision was still for days; that is, beyond the 490
years of the Seventy Heptades: and that he would show him what was noted in the
scripture of truth. The eleventh and twelfth chapters contain the revelators
discourse, which Daniel says he understood.
In the beginning of the
tenth chapter he informs us that the time appointed was long “. When the truth
of the matter was revealed
Pg 47
to Daniel, the third year
of Cyrus had arrived, B.C. 540. The first event of the vision he had witnessed;
that, namely, of the Persian Horn of the Ram exceeding the Median Horn in
altitude. This was I i6 years before the commencement of the Seventy Weeks, or
490 years. The vision, however, is still for days, which will not expire until
the Seven Times of the kingdom of Babylon shall have ended in the
reconcentration of the power of the Holy People. Then all things foretold in
the Book of Daniel will be finished (Dan. 12 : 7). Well might it be said, “ the time
appointed is long “. Upwards of 2,400 years have elapsed since the first year
of Cyrus sole reign, or the third after his conquest of Babylon, when the word
was revealed unto Daniel” ; and, some forty at least will still be required for
the full accomplishment of the things which are noted in the Scriptures of
truth.
The word revealed, then,
may be distributed into three sections the first terminates at the end
of the thirty-fifth verse of the eleventh chapter; the second ends at
the conclusion of the thirty-ninth; and to the third belongs the rest of
the chapter to the end of the twelfth.
From the third verse of
the eleventh chapter the discourse treats of the Goats notable horn in
respect of the succession to his dominion; and from the fifth to the twenty
ninth, of the mutual rivalries, wars, and policy of the northern and southern
horns of the Goat; and from the thirtieth to the thirty-third inclusive, of the
indignation of the northern horn against Judah, Jerusalem, and the
evening-morning sacrifice ; and the thirty-fourth and thirty fifth verses, of
the help the Jews experienced under the Asmoneans till they were
subjected to the Little Horn of the Goat, or nation of a fierce countenance,
whose tongue they did not understand “.
The second section is
descriptive of the Latino-Greek Babylonian power which established its dominion
over the territories of the nom them and southern horns of the Goat, and over
the Holy Land; and which was to prosper, or maintain its position to the
exclusion of Judah till the indignation against them should be accomplished, or
tom a short space after the termination of the 2.400 years.
The third section of
the discourse reveals the reappearance of the southern and northern horns of
the Goat upon their ancient territories, and their reaction upon the Moslemized
Latino-Greek Little Horn; the pushing at this, and the subjection of the
southern horn, by the northern horn; the invasion of the Holy Land by this
horn; the destruction of this power by Michael the great commander; the
deliverance of Judah; the resurrection of some of the dead; and the
reconcentration of the power of all the tribes of Israel, in a time of trouble
such as the world has never known since the confusion of human speech.
If we may judge from the
utter failures of commentators to interpret the eleventh of Daniel, it may be
pronounced to be the most difficult and incomprehensible chapter in the Bible.
Moses Stuart, formerly Professor of Sacred Literature in the Theological
Seminary at Andover “, tells us, that, at verse 20, we come upon
Antiochus Epiphanes, whose history (as we may almost name it) occupies the
Pg 48
rest of the chapter “.
This absurdity is but a specimen (if the rest. In his Commentary “, he
says he follows “ the simple grammatical interpretation” ;
hence, having assumed that the last verse of the eleventh refers to Antiochuss
death, he makes the first verse of the twelfth announce the standing up of
Michael to be at that time This shows how little the grammatical interpretation
is to be depended on apart from an understanding of the gospel of the Kingdom
of God. Seeing then that these mere grammarians are ignorant of this gospel, it
is no use wasting precious time in considering their speculations, which can never
come out right, inasmuch as the gospel is no constituent of the materials from
which they work out their conclusions.
We shall be better employed in excavating the truth for ourselves. Let
us, then, apply ourselves to the agreeable task, and see in what our labour
will result.
In presenting the reader
with an interpretation of this chapter, I shall have regard to the above
divisions of the revelators discourse. I shall give it in the form of
paraphrases, incorporating the prophecy with the interpretation, but at the
same time giving the angels words in italics to distinguish them from my
own. I may remark as to the date, that the revelator introduces his discourse
with an allusion to
the first year of Darius
the Mede “. This was also the first year of Cyrus, who reigned conjointly with
Darius ; so that the third year of Cyrus was the first of his reign by himself.
The reigns of Darius and Cyrus w ill therefore count as one, after which four
are to be reckoned.
TO
THE THIRY FIFTH VERSE INCLUSIVE~
Behold, there shall
stand up yet three kings in Greece, namely, Ahasuerus, Smerdis, and Darius ; and the fourth, or
Xerxes, shall be far richer than they
all ,‘ and by his strength through his riches he shall stir up all
against the realm of Greece. and Alexander the Macedonian, a mighty king
shall stand up, ruling with great
dominion and doing according to his will. And when he shall stand up, having
suffered no defeat, his kingdom shall be broken and shall be divided into
four horns or kingdoms toward the four winds of heaven : and their glory
and power shall fall not to his posterity, nor according to the extent
of his dominion which he ruled. for his kingdom shall be plucked up, even
for other rulers besides those of his family. And the King of the
South shall he strong, and shall be one of his, Alexander the Great, princes
or generals ; and he shall be strong above him, and have dominion, his
dominion shall be a great dominion, extending over Egypt, Libya, Cyrenaica,
Arabia, Palestine, Coele Syria, and most of the maritime provinces of Asia Minor, with the island of Cyprus, and
several others in the AEgean Sea, and even some cities of Greece, as Cicyon and
Corinth. Such was the dominion of Ptolemy Soter, the first Macedonian King of
Egypt.
VERSE 6. And in the end
of 52 years from B.C. 301, they the
Kings of Egypt, and of the Assyro-Macedonian Horn of the north shall,
associate themselves together, for Berenice, the kings daughter
of the south, shall come, or be conducted, to Antiochus Theos, the
king of the north, to make a marriage agreement; but she shall not
retain the power of
Pg 49
the arm of her father Ptolemy Philadeiphus. Neither shall
he her husband Antitichus stand; for Laodice his repudiated wife,
whom he shall receive again when he divorces Berenice after her fathers death,
shall cause him to be poisoned. Nor shall his arm, Berenice, stand; but
she shall be given up to suffer death; and they, the Egyptians
also that brought her to Syria; and he, her son, whom she
brought forth, and he that strengthened her in these times, shall die ; and
thus leave her to the mercy of Laodice, which will be treachery and death.
VERSE 7. But out of a
branch of her parent roots, Ptolemy Euergetes — her brother, shall
stand up in his estate, or kingdomand come with an army, and
shall enter into Antioch the capital, and .the fortress of the King of
the north, and shall deal, or make war, against them, even against
Laodice and her son Seleucus, and shall prevail; and Euergetes shall
also carry captive into Egypt their gods, with their princes, and with
their precious vessels of silver and gold: and he shall continue to reign
nine more years than the King of the north, who shall die a prisoner in
Parthia five years before the King of Egypt. So the king of the south shall
come into his kingdom, and shall return into his own land, B.C. 244.
VERSE 10. But his Seleucus
Callinicus sons, Seleucus Ceraunus and Antiochus, shall be ,stirred
up to war; and shall assemble a
multitude of great force. and one of them,, even Antiochus the Great, shall
certainly come and overflow through the passes of Libanus, and pass
through into Galilee, and possess himself of all that part of the country
which was formerly the inheritance of the tribes Reuben and Gad, and of the
half tribe of Manasseh. Then, the season being too far advanced to
prolong the campaign, shall he return to Ptolemais, where he shall put
his forces into winter quarters. But early in the spring, B.C. 217,
Ptolemy Philopater shall march with a large army to Raphia, by which Antiochus shall
be stirred up again to war, and defeated with great slaughter, so that he
shall retreat to his fortress. Thus shall the king of the south be moved
with choler, and come forth and fight with the king of the north, and the
King of the north shall set forth a great multitude, even 72,000 foot
and 6,ooo horse ; but the multitude shall be given into the hand of the
King of Egypt.
And when he, the King of the south, had taken away the multitude
by a signal defeat of Antiochus, his heart shall he lifted up, for
he will desire to enter the ,Most Holy Place of the temple. But while he was
preparing to enter, he was stricken and carried off for dead. In his victory
over Antiochus, he shall cast down ten thousands, even 10,000 foot and
300 horse. But not following up his advantages, Philopater, shall not he
strengthened by his victory. For Antiochus the king of the north
shall return and shall set forth a multitude of troops greater than the
former, and shall certainly come after certain, that is nineteen years after
the battle of Raphia, of B.C. 198, with a great army and with much riches, and
shall subjugate all the Holy and CoeIe -Syria.
VERSE 14. And in those,
times when Ptolemy Epiphanes shall reign over Egypt, many shall stand up
against the infant king of the south, even the kings of Macedonia,
and of Syria, and Scopas, the general of his deceased father. But the
Deputies of the Breakers of thy people Judah, 0 Daniel, that is, of the
Romans, shall interfere to establish the
pg 50
vision. The Romans became the guardians and protectors
of Epiphanes during his minority. They appointed three deputies, who were
ordered to acquaint the Kings with their resolution, and to enjoin them not to
infest the dominions of their royal pupil; for that otherwise they should be
forced to declare war against them. The Deputy Emilius, one of the three, after
delivering the message of the Roman Senate, proceeded to Alexandria) and
settled everything to as much advantage as the state of affairs in Egypt would
then admit. In this way the Romans began to mix themselves up with the affairs
of Egypt, Syria, and the Holy; and in a few years established themselves as
lords paramount of the East, being thus constituted a Power in Asia, which is
symbolized in this relation by the Little Horn on the Northern Horn of the
Grecian Goat; and in the 36th verse of this chapter, styled, “THE
KING “. But, though destined to be “the Breakers of Judah “, the
assurance was given to Daniel, saying, they shall fall.
So the king of the north, being checked by the Roman Deputies, shall come into the Holy, and cast up a mount against Sidon, where he shall besiege the forces of the Egyptians; and be shall take Jerusalem, the city of munitions, from the castle of which he shall expel the Egyptian ~ garrison; and the arms of the south shall not withstand, neither his chosen people, neither shall there be any strength to withstand Antiochus. But Antiochus who cometh against Ptolemy Epiphanes shall do according to his own will in Coele-Syria and the Holy Land, and none shall stand before him: and he shall make a permanent stand in the land of glo~y which 4, his band shall be consumed. He shall also set his face to enter into Greece with the strength of his whole kingdom, and Israelites with him. Thus shall he do to incorporate Greece with his dominion, by which the Romans who had recently proclaimed it free, would be stirred up against him. Therefore, to secure the neutrality of their Egyptian ally he shall give Cleopatra, the daughter of women, or princess royal, to Epiphanes to wife, corrupting her to betray him by resigning to him Coele-Syria and Palestine as her dower; but on condition that he should receive half the revenue. Thus the land of Judah was given over as a bribe to bind Cleopatra to her father’s interests, that she might influence Epiphanes either to remain neutral, or to declare against the Romans, his protectors. But she shall cleave to her husband, and not stand, neither be for him, but shall join with her husband in congratulating the Roman Senate on the victory they had gained over her father at Thermopylae.
After this shall Antiochus, at the earnest solicitation of the . AEtolians, turn his face unto the isles of Greece, and shall take many: but a chieftian (kotzin), L. Scipio, the Roman Consul, shall cause the reproach t o end to him to cease without his own disgrace be, Scipio, shall cause it to turn upon Antiochus, by defeating him at Mount Sipyllus, and repulsing him from every part of Asia Minor. As the condition of peace, the Romans required him to pay 15,000 talents—500 down, 2,500 on the ratification of the treaty, and the rest in twelve years at 1,000 talents per annum. These terms being acceded to, be shall turn his face toward the fortress, or capitol, of his own land, being much at a loss how to raise the tribute. While in the province of Elymais, he heard of a considerable treasure in the temple of Jupiter Belus. He
pg 51
accordingly broke into it in the dead of night, and carried off all its riches.
But he shall stumble, and fall, and not be found for the provincials,
exasperated at the robbery, rebelled against him, and murdered him and all his
attendants, B.C. 187.
VERSE 20 Then shall stand up in Antiochus’ estate or kingdom, his son Seleucus Philopater, one who causeth an exactor to pass over the glory of the kingdom; The business of his reign being to raise the tribute for the Romans. But within few days, that is twelve years, be shall be destroyed, neither in anger nor in battle, being poisoned by Heliodorus, his prime minister, having reigned long enough to pay the last installment to the Romans.
VERSE 21. And in his, Seleucus Philopater’s, place shall stand up Heliodorus, a vile person, being both a poisoner and usurper, to whom they the authorities of the nation, shall not give the honour of the kingdom: but Antiochus Epiphanes shall come in peaceably, and obtain the kingdom by flatteries bestowed on the adherents of Heliodorus.
VERSE 22. And with the
arms of a flood, by which they shall be formidably invaded, shall they, the
Egyptians, be overflown from before Antiochus, whom they excite
to war, by demanding the restitution of Coele-Syria and Palestine. And they
shall be broken, or subdued, yea, also, Onias, the High Priest, or Prince
of the Mosaic Covenant, shall be murdered, as it came to pass B.C.
172. And after the league made with Ptolemy Philometer, Antiochus shall
work deceitfully after his second invasion of Egypt, B.C. 170; for he
shall come up to Alexandria, and he shall become strong with a small
people, or army. By his deceit, be shall enter peaceably even upon the
fattest places of the province to which he reduces Egypt; and he, Antiochus,
shall do that which his fathers, or predecessors on the throne, have
not done, nor his fathers’ fathers; namely, be shall scatter among his
followers the prey, and spoils, and riches: yea, he shall forecast his
devices against the strongholds of Egypt, even for a time. And he shall
stir up his power and his courage against the king of the south with a great
army; and the king of the south shall be stirred up to battle with a very great
and mighty army, but be shall not stand: for the Alexandrians seeing him in
the hands of Antiochus, and lost to them, shall forecast devices against
him, and place the crown of Egypt on the head of his brother, Euergetes ir.
Yea, they that feed of the portion of Philometer’s meat, even his
courtiers, shall separate, or renounce, him; and his Antiochus’ army
shall overflow Egypt; and many of the Egyptians shall fall down
slain. And the hearts of both these kings shall be to do mischief, and they
shall speak lies at one table, but shall not prosper, for the end is still at
the time appointed.
Then shall Antiochus return into his land with great riches; and his heart shall be against the Covenant of the Holy; and he shall do terrible things against Jerusalem, taking it by storm, butchering 8o,ooo men, making 40,000 prisoners, and causing a like number to be sold for slaves. And then shall he return to his own land, laden with the spoils of the Temple, amounting to 1,800 talents, or £270,000, about $1,315,000..
At the time appointed, under pretense of restoring Philometer to the throne, he shall return and come towards the south, against Alexandria
Pg 52
1
to
besiege it. But it, this fourth invasion, shall not be as the former or as the
latter. He raised the siege and marched towards Memphis, where he installed
Philometer as king. As soon, however, as he had departed, Philometer came to an
understanding with Euergetes, and they agreed to a joint reign over Egypt. This
coming to the ears of Antiochus, he led a powerful army against Memphis, for
the purpose of subduing the country. Having nearly accomplished his project, he
marched ag2inst Alexandria, which was the only obstacle to his becoming
absolute master of Egypt. But the Roman Embassy, sent at the request of the
Ptolemies, met him about a mile from the city. They had left Rome with the
utmost diligence. When they arrived at Delos they found a fleet of Macedonian,
or Greek, ships, on board of which they embarked for Alexandria, where they
arrived at the crisis of his approach: Popilius delivered to Antiochus the
decree of the Senate, and demanded an immediate answer. Sorely against his will
he agreed to obey its mandate, and draw off his army from Egypt. Thus, his
invasion terminated very differently from the former and the latter; for the
ships of Chittim shall come against him, and prevent him from incorporating
Egypt into his Assyrian dominion of the north. Thus, the prophecy of Balaam,
that “ships from the coast of Chittim shall come and afflict Asshur “, began to
show itself; a more complete fulfillment remains for the latter days, when “
Asshur shall perish forever “.
All Antiochus wrath was kindled at this
interference ; therefore he shall be grieved, and return, and have indignation
against the Covenant of the Holy, for in his return march, through Palestine,
he detached 20,000 men under Apollonius with orders to destroy Jerusalem, B.C.
168. So shall he do; he shall even return and have intelligence with them that
forsake the Covenant of the Holy.
VERSE
31. And arms shall stand on his part under Apollonius; and they, the
Assyro-Macedonian troops, shall penetrate the temple, ham-mikdosh, the
stronghold, and they shall remove the Daily, and they shall place a statue of
the Olympian Jupiter in the temple, and a strong garrison in the castle to
command it, as the abomination making desolate its courts, and overawing the
nation.
As soon as Antiochus Epiphanes was returned to
Antioch, he published a decree by which all his subjects were required to
conform to the religion of the State. This was aimed chiefly at the Jews, whose
religion and nation he was resolved to extirpate. Atheneus, a man advanced in
years, and extremely well versed in all the ceremonies of Grecian idolatry, was
commissioned to carry the edict into effect in Judea and Samaria. As soon as he
arrived at Jerusalem he began by suppressing the Daily, or evening-morning
sacrifice, and all the observances of the Mosaic Law. He caused the sabbaths
and other festivals to be profaned; forbade the circumcision of children; carried
off and burned all copies of the Law and the Prophets wherever they could be
found; and put to death whoever acted contrary to the decree of the king. To
establish it the sooner in every part of the nation, altars and chapels filled
with idols were erected in every city, and sacred groves were planted. Officers
were appointed over these,
53
who caused
the people generally to offer sacrifice in them every month, on the day of the
month on which the king was born, who made them eat swines flesh and
other unclean animals sacrificed there. The temple in Jerusalem was dedicated
to Jupiter Olympius, whose statue was placed in it. Thus he did in his great
indignation against the Covenant of the Holy Nation and its Land.
VERSE
32. And such of the Jews as do wickedly against the covenant shall Antiochus,
by flatteries, cause to dissemble. These not only” forsook the covenant of the
holy “, but” had intelligence” with the king, and aided him all they could in
the desolation with which he was overspreading their country. But the
Maccabees and their adherents, people who do know their God shall be strong,
and do valiantly in war. And they, even Mattathias and his five sons, and
others with them, that understand among the people, shall instruct and
encourage many; yet they, of the Maccabean party, shall fall by the sword, and
by flame, by captivity, and by spoil, evils incident to the war, for days, that
is, seven years from the ninth of Antiochus, the Era of the Asmoneans, to the
third of Demetrius Soter, B.C. 161.
Now,
when they shall fall by these seven years calamities, they shall be holpen with
a little help; for while Antiochus was amusing himself in celebrating games at
Daphne, Judas Maccabaeus had raised the standard of independence, and was
helping his countrymen in Judea. He levied a small army, fortified the cities,
rebuilt the fortresses, threw strong garrisons into them, and thereby awed the
whole country. He defeated and killed Apollonius, and made great slaughter of
the troops. With 3,000 men he defeated Lysias with 47,000; and another army of
20,000 under Timotheus and Bacchides; and in the year before Christ 170, he
gave Lysias a second defeat at Bethsura, by which he dispersed 65,000 of the
enemy. The “little help” they received at this crisis was mingled with the
supernatural, which will account for the extraordinary victories of the Jews
over such powerful armies of Greeks with such unequal forces. In the battle
with Timotheus near Jerusa1em, it is related, that, “When it waxed strong
there appeared in sight of the enemy, from heaven, five comely men upon horses
with bridles of gold, and two of them led the Jews, and took Maccabaeus betwixt
them, and covered him on every side with their weapons, and kept him safe, but
shot arrows and lightnings against the enemies; so that being confounded with
blindness, and full of trouble, they were killed “ (2 Mac. 10: 29-30). Also, in
the battle against Lysias, near Bethsura, with his 8o,ooo Greeks, Maccabaeus
and the Jews prayed that Yahweh would send a good angel to deliver Israel. In
answer to this, as they were marching from Jerusalem, “there appeared before
them, on horseback, one in white clothing, shaking his armour of gold . . .
Thus they marched forward in their armour, ready not only to fight with men,
but with most cruel beasts, and to pierce through walls of iron, having an
helper from heaven: for Yahweh was merciful to them. And giving a charge upon
their enemies like lions, they slew 11,ooo footmen, and 1,6oo horsemen, and put
all the others to flight” (2 Mac.
11:8-11). Thus were “ they holpen with a little help “ from heaven, and
their struggle for independence crowned with
Pg
54
success.
Yet, in that struggle many did cleave to them with flatteries.. trial was,
therefore, necessary that the approved might be manifested to the Deity. Hence,
it was determined that the party of the wise shall be weak, to try them, and to
purify, and make them white FOR THE TIME OF THE END; for then their services
will be needed to assist in overthrowing the Kingdom of Babylon, and in taking
the kingdom under the whole heaven, as shown to Daniel in the first year of
Belshazzar. The Era of the Asmoneans was not
that end; for, having particularized the events of the era, the
revelator added, it is still for a time appointed.
We have now arrived at the end of the thirty
fifth verse, the events of which bring us down to the conclusion of 430 years
from the destruction of the City and temple in the 19th of Nebuchadnezzar.
There is here a change of topic in the prophecy. No more is said about Judahs
warfare with the Greek Powers of the north or south. History, but not the
prophecy, informs us that Judah became a kingdom, under princes of the Asmonean
family, until it passed under the sceptre of Herod the Idumean, in the 39 th
year of whose reign JESUS CHRIST was “born KING OF THE JEWS “. Not long after
this event the sceptre of Judah was transferred to the Romans, whose emperor
became the reigning king (John 19 : 15). But the sceptre was only temporarily
departed; and its return is earnestly desired and expected by all who belies e
the gospel of the Kingdom of God. When Jesus was 26 years old, the things
revealed by Gabriel (Dan. 9 : 24, 27), in relation to the seventieth heptade,
began to be accomplished. During that seven years Judahs heart was
stirred up from its lowest depths. John the Baptist and Jesus, the greatest
personages of the time, turned all minds to that great kingdom, which, in the
hands of the Prince Royal and the Saints, is to rule over all. But even then,
“the end was still for a time appointed “. About 1,835 years have passed since
the expiration of the seventieth heptade. Judah has been broken, but their “
breakers” have not been “ground to powder” by the Stone. The time, however,
fast approaches; and the nearer it arrives, the more important do all questions
become bearing upon Judahs land, and Zion, the city of their king.
About 95 years after the end of the 430 years
previously indicated, the Asiatic kingdom of the north, which had so terribly afflicted
Judah, was annexed by Pompey to the empire of the Romans, which, by the
absorption of Greece, had now become Romano- or Latino-Greek; and in about
thirty-five years after that, Egypt experienced the same fate. The kingdom of
the Jews still survived. Two powers alone existed. The Four Horns of the Goat
had disappeared; and nothing of the symbol remained but that which answered to
the Romano-Greek Asiatic Power, waxing exceeding great toward the east, and
looking with a fierce and threatening countenance upon the little kingdom of
Judea. What shall this power be called? Gabriel styled it “a Little Horn”
budding forth out of one of the four horns of the Goat—” little “ in its
Asiatic beginning, but “ exceeding great” when it had ceased to grow. In relation
to the Holy Land it appeared as a power, first in the north. History therefore
shows, that the horn of the north was the one of the four upon which Daniel
beheld it.
But it did
not content itself with merely looking fiercely at Judah. It fought against
Judea and conquered; and so firmly had it established itself in the Holy, that
when Jesus was arraigned before it, Judah clamored for his death, crying, “We
have no king but Caesar “.
From the annexation of the Holy Land to the
Roman empire by Pompey until the present time, it has been mainly subject to
Rome and Constantinople to Rome until the throne of the empire was transferred
by Constantine the Great to the city called by his name. Because, therefore, the
Holy Land and city have been in the main possessed by the Romano
Constantinopolitan power; and because that power crucified the King of the
Jews, and destroyed the holy soon after the seventieth heptade; and because it
is the same (though administered by a different race and generation, that is,
the Moslem) that will stand up against heavens Commander in Chief in the
approaching consummation—the power is represented by one and the same symbol,
which is styled “ the Little Horn “ of the Grecian Goat, or nation.
But before dismissing the interpretation of the
first section of the revelators discourse, I would add some further
remarks concerning the end of the Maccabean Heptade.
Pg 56
house for
the worship of the Olympian Jupiter. At length, and after all these terrible
vicissitudes, and about seven years before the 430 years were about to expire,
Judas Maccabaeus, as the chieftain of a weak, but patriotic, intelligent, and
devout, party of his countrymen, having a zeal for the Deity and his holy law,
commenced a war against Antiochus Epiphanes, illustrious for his zeal for
Gentilism, his warlike propensities, and his cruel and bitter hatred of the
Jews. The war ended in the deliverance of Jerusalem from his desolating
abomination, the purification of the temple from the insignia of idolatry, its
rededication to Yahweh, and the conversion of the Commonwealth into an
independent kingdom, under the Levitical family of Asmoneus, in which the
sovereignty continued for 129 years, till it was transferred to Herod the
Idumean by the Romans, B.C. 39.
And
out of one of them (one of the horns) came forth a Little Horn, which waxed
exceeding great against the south, and against the east, and against the glory
(of the land). And it waxed great above the host of the heavens; and of the
host and the stars it cast down to the ground, and stamped upon them. and
against the Commander of the host it magnified, and by it the evening morning
sacrifice was taken away, and the foundation of its holy place scattered. And a
host was given against the daily sacrifice because of transgression, and it
cast down the truth to the ground; and it wrought and prospered” (Dan. 8 : 9
12).
And
in the latter time of their kingdom (the dominion of the four horns), so as to
cause the transgressors to fill up their measure, there shall stand up a king
of fierce countenance, and understanding an intricate language. And his power
shall be mighty, but not in his own virility; and he shall destroy wonderfully,
and shall prosper and work; and shall destto3 multitudes, and the
people of the holy ones. And through his policy, also, he shall cause falsehood
to prosper by his power; and because of his heart he shall do proudly, and in
prosperity he shall destroy many ; he shall also stand up against the Commander
of chieftains ; but he shall be broken without help (Dan. 8 : 23-25)
“ And the king shall work according to his
pleasure, and he shall exalt himself and magnify himself against every mighty
one, and he shall utter marvelous things concerning the Mightiest of the
mighty, and he shall cause to prosper till the indignation be accomplished; for
that that is determined shall be done. But to the gods of his predecessors he
shall give no heed, nor to the delight of women, nor to any god shall he attend
; for he shall become great above all.”
Pg 57
‘But he shall do honour to a god of guardians
in his realm; even to a god whom his predecessors knew not, shall he do honour
with gold and silver, and with costly gems and precious things. Thus shall he
do to the Bazaars of the Guardians pertaining to a strange god, whom he shall
acknowledge (and) exalt (with) riches; and shall cause them to rule over many;
and he shall divide the land for a. price” (Dan. ix :36-39).
Here is a power which is
to “ prosper till the indignation
against Judah “ be
accomplished “. The present condition of the Jews makes it evident to all that
divine indignation against them still exists : hence the conclusion is
necessary, that the Little Horn power is one of the powers that be.
The prophecy concerning
“the King” in the eighth chapter is evidently descriptive of the Latino Greek
power in its pagan constitution, known in history as the destroyer of
Jerusalem, and Judah “ the people of the holy ones” ; but with a hint also of
its future ecclesiastical peculiarity, as appears from the testimony that “
through his policy he shall cause falsehood to prosper by his power “. These
few words are descriptive of the character or nature of the power since
Constantine the Great set up its throne in Constantinople to the present hour;
and will be so pre-eminently, when its administration shall pass from the
Sultan to the Autocrat of all the Russias. As the head of a confederacy of the
adherents of the Greek and Latin churches, it will be his policy to cause their
priesthoods to be respected as useful co- operators in the subjection of Europe
to his will.
This ecclesiastical policy
of the Constantinopolitan Autocracy is enlarged upon in the description of it
set forth in the eleventh chapter, where it is more particularly regarded in
its catholic constitution without taking into the account the division of the
Babylonian superstition into Greek and Latin catholic churches. Whatever may be
the individual prejudices existing between individuals of the two schisms
matters not ; their ecclesiastics, whose spiritual authority is death-stricken
by infidelity, on the principle of self-preservation will have to place
themselves under the shadow of the Autocrat, as Greeks and Latins have already
done in the present dominions of the Czar.
In studying the nature of
the Little Horn power it must not be regarded as a purely civil and military,
or as an ecclesiastical power per ce. It is both; but in describing it two
classes of administrators are personified, the one as “the king “, and the
other, as “ a god of guardians, whom his (pagan) predecessors knew not “, and
therefore a strange god “. The power is said to give “ no heed to the delight
of women “. But under its pagan constitution, the emperors who were Pontifices
Maximi, or High Priests, as well as the civil and military chiefs of the state,
and their subordinates in the priesthood, did give heed to the delight of
women; that is, it was their pleasure to marry: but when this pagan
constitution of the power was superseded by the Catholics as the consequence of
the Constantinian revolution of the fourth century, the High Priesthood
disappeared until its revival in the Bishop of Rome; so that he in Rome, and
the Emperor in Constantinople, became the representative incarnations of the
civil
Pg 58
and spiritual elements of
the Latino-G reek Babylonian power. The imperial head still gave heed to “the
delight of women “, or, as some render it, “the desire of wives “;while the
sacerdotal Constituent of the power “forbids to marry, and commands to abstain
from meats “ (1 Tim. 4 :3).
Till the foundation of
“the Holy Roman” dominion by Charlemagne and Leo, the bishop of Rome’s
imperial associate was the emperor at Constantinople; but when he could no
longer afford him protection against the Longbeards he formed an alliance with
the French emperor A.D. 8oo, which has politically obtained in the imperial
line to this day. He is, however, at present in a peculiar and exceptional
situation, which cannot become permanent. A pope and two emperors of the west
is representative of two antagonist policies acting upon the same
ecclesiastical centre which must result in Collision, * and terminate in the
suppression of one of the emperors, that the normal constitution of things may
be restored.
But the time is not far
off, when the Latin Bishop may have to seek again to the Constantinopolitan
Imperial Autocracy for protection. Daniels prophecy of” the king”
required this; for he is to “cause to prosper till the indignation be
accomplished “The pope and one of the
emperors sustained “ by the power of the king” will place the Latino Greek king
“above all” the mighty who shall be his contemporaries in “ the time of the
end “.
But, for this
manifestation to appear, the Ottoman dynasty must of course be driven out of
Europe. The occupation of the Dragons throne by a non catholic royalty
is clearly exceptional. The Ottoman has never, as a matter of fact. “ magnified
himself above all” ; nor has he honoured the Latin Bishop as a god in his
dominion, or shown himself at all a gracious patron of his saints and their
temples. The power causing falsehood, or False-Prophetism, to prosper, must
hold Jerusalem at the crisis of the accomplishment of the indignation. By
False-Prophetism, I mean, papalism. Hence, the Sultan must be ejected, that a
dynasty patronizing a High Priest who forbids to marry, may come in. When,
therefore, the Czar gets possession of Constantinople + he will not be hostile
to the pope. On the Contrary, he will honour and acknowledge him, and be the
enemy of the Holy Land.
As to the Ottoman, his
existence in Constantinople is exceptional. His mission was to punish the Greek
catholics, and the Latins also to some extent, for their excessive superstition
and idolatry, with the loss of their sovereignty over “a third part” of the
Latino-Greek Babylonian empire; and not to extinguish temporarily or finally
the Little
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
*The collision occurred in
1859 in the Franco Italian conflict with Austria; while the war of 1866 has given
the ascendancy in papal sifairs to the emperor of the French, for a time at
least. The expulsion of Austria from Italy and the abolition of the Concordat,
abandons the Pope to the caprice of Napoleon III. The fall of Napoleon would
change the situation greatly.
+ It is questionable
whether Gog obtains possession of Constantinople before the advent, or after
it. He may get the city, but still lack dominion over Asiatic Turkey. His
contest for this brings him against Egypt and the mountains of Israel.
Pg 59
Horn Power. As far as the
Greeks were concerned, their sovereignty was abolished A.D. 1453. The Greek
dynasty of the power gave place to the Turkish, while the horn itself remained.
The destruction of the horn is reserved for Michael the great Commander of
Judah, after it shall have come under the sovereignty of the king of the north.
This existence of the Ottoman régime in the Kingdom of Babylon, may be regarded
by way of illustration, as a splint upon a broken leg. It remains therefore the
support of the limb until the fractured ends shall be reunited by callus, after
which it is removed as useless. The brass and iron eastern limb of
Nebuchadnezzars Image received a fracture at the juncture of the two
metals. The sovereignty of the kingdom of Babylon was no longer Greek and
Latin; but, as at the present time, Latin and Ottoman, in” the time of the end
“, however, when the Image stands complete upon its Feet of Iron and Clay,
sound constitutional limbs are indispensable. The time is now about come, when
the Ottoman splint may be removed, and the Latino-Greek Leg of the Image
repaired by Russian callus be permitted to stand under a regime more in
consonance with the catholic constitution of the kingdom of Babylon. The
unbinding of the splint is the current mission of” the Powers “. It is obvious
to all that the Turk is a useless excrescence upon society, occupying a
position in the heaven of Churchdom for which he is not at all qualified by
faith, civilization, or sympathy with contemporary despotisms. The Babylonians
are all willing that he should be deposed from his sovereignty over the
catholic populations ; but they are not willing that the Byzantine empire
should he revived under the Autocrat of All the Russias. Their antagonisms,
however, for the prevention of this may be the providential means to bring it
about. Every step they take in the Eastern Question only makes this result more
probable. The end, untoward enough for them, is decreed; and the Deity has blinded
them, confusing all their counsel, that it may come to pass.
The Little Horn of the
Goat is brother to the Little Horn of the fourth beast with its Eyes and Mouth.
Their fraternity is consequent upon the Latin element entering into the
constitution of them both. Old Rome is the throne of the Little Horn with Eyes
and Mouth; while New Rome, or Constantinople, is the throne of the Little Horn
of the Goat. The former power is the New Roman Empire of the West founded by
Charlemagne, which has never been as yet united to the Greek element of the
kingdom of Babylon. It is styled “the Holy Roman” dominion, because their
Holinesses the Popes are its High Priests. Hence, it is the Latin kingdom of
heaven, beyond the pale of which, they say, there is no salvation The Little
Horn of the Goat represents the undivided power of the Kingdom of Babylon from
the annexation of the northern kingdom to Rome, B.C. 65, to the loss of Italy,
and the West; and of the same power minus Italy and the West from the eighth
century to the present time. But when the Autocrat gains Constantinople, and
Russianizes Italy and the West; and having superseded the Ottoman régime in
Asia, comes as Gog to invade the Holy Land and to besiege Jerusalem, the Little
Horn of the Goat will again represent the power of the whole dominion
Pg 60
briefly united under one
chief, and he the proudest that ever exalted and magnified himself above all
the rulers upon earth. In that near future the Little Horn of the Goat will be
“ exceeding great “, overshadowing all the sovereignties represented by the
Two-Horned, and Ten-Horned, Beasts, and the Pseudoprophet of the Beast. But
when it is “broken in pieces without help” it appears no more as a symbol upon
the prophetic page. Its mission in the Holy Land and against Judah ends with
its own Pharaoh like destruction; and the East delivered, future events re open
in the West, where only a Beast, the False Prophet, and the Ten Horns, their
Russian Constantinopolitan confederacy being dissolved, remain to be ground to
powder, and destroyed by fire and sword.
The ‘ policy” of the
Little Horn king in his Constantinian successorship to A.D. 1453 was, and will
hereafter be, characterized by zeal for the baptized paganism known in history
as the catholic religion. Justinian of all its crowned heads affords the most
striking illustration of Daniels description of it. His policy was
truly ecclesiastical. “Never prince “, says Dupin, “did meddle so much with
what concerns the affairs of the Church, nor make so many constitutions and
laws upon this subject. He was persuaded that it was the duty of an emperor,
and for the good of the state, to have a particular care of the Church, to
defend its faith, to regulate external discipline, and to employ the civil laws
and the temporal power to preserve it in order and peace “.
Justinian, says Gibbon, “
sympathized with his subjects in their superstitious reverence for living and
departed saints ; his Code, more especially his Novels, confirm and enlarge the
privileges of the clergy; and in every dispute between the monk and the layman,
the partial judge was inclined to pronounce that truth, and innocence were
always on the side of the Church. In his public and private devotions, the
Emperor was assiduous and exemplary; his prayers, vigils, and fasts, displayed
the austere penance of a monk; his fancy was amused by the hope, or belief, of
personal inspiration; he had secured the patronage of the Virgin, and St. Michael
the archangel; and his recovery from a dangerous disease was ascribed to the
miraculous succour of the holy martyrs, Cosmas and Damian... Among the titles
of imperial greatness, the name of Pious was the most pleasing to his ear; to
promote the temporal and spiritual interest of the Church was the serious
business of his life; and the duty of father of his country was often
sacrificed to that of defender of the faith. . . While the barbarians invaded
the provinces, while the victorious legions marshalled under the banners of
Belisarius and Narses, the successor of Trajan, unknown to the camp, was
content to vanquish at the head of a synod “.
Enmity to Judah and the
disciples of Christ, whom it designates as heretics and schismatics, has been
characteristic of the kingdom of Babylon under all its administrations. This
feature of it is indicated in the saying, that “In prosperity he shall destroy
many “. The Constantinopolitan Little Horn as well as its imperial brother of
the West, has abundantly vindicated its claim to this destructiveness.
Justinian was no individual exception to this general character of the
61
power. His reign, says
Gibbon, “was an uniform, yet various scene of persecution; and he appears to
have surpassed his indolent predecessors both in the contrivance of his laws
and rigour of their execution. The insufficient term of three months was
assigned for the conversion or exile of all heretics ; and if he still connived
at the precarious stay, they were deprived, under his iron yoke, not only of
the benefits of society, but of the common birthright of men and Christians “.
The high exaltation of the
Constantinopolitan Autocracy in” the time of the end “, previously to its
standing up to “ be broken without help” by Judahs Commander in Chief,
is predicted in the words, He shall become great above all “. Impious and cruel
as Antiochus Epiphanes, and superstitious and fanatical as Justinian, with the
arrogance, ambition, and profanity of the Latin Prophet in his palmiest days,
this Sin-power administered by a Russian régime, will be wanting in none of the
arrogance that has been predicated of Pauls “ MAN OF SIN and Son of
Perdition “, whose spiritual element opposeth and exalteth himself above every
one called a god, or an object of regard; so that in the temple of the god he
sits as a god exhibiting himself because he is a god. The apostle then informs
us of his destruction by Michael the great commander, saying, That Lawless One
shall the Lord consume with the Spirit of his mouth (represented in the
Apocalypse by a sword going out of his mouth) and bring to an end with the
manifestation of his presence: the coming of whom is according to the working
of the adversary in all power, and signs, and lying wonders, and with all
deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish “ (2Thess. 2 :3, 4, 8,
9). This is not exclusively applicable to the Latin False Prophet; but to the
power comprehensive of the civil, military, and spiritual elements as described
by Daniel, and designated by Isaiah as “ The King for whom Tophet is ordained
of old “ (Isa. 30 : 27-33 ; 31 : 8, 9). When the sceptre falls from the feeble
hands of the Sultan, the world will behold in his Muscovite successor a
potentate not surpacced in presumption and impiety by any of his predecessors,
not excepting Pharaoh of the olden time.
“To a god of guardians in
his estate he shall do honour “. The original is eloah mahuzzim, “ a god of
guardians “ : and styled in the same connection, eloah naikhar, “a strange god
“—a god appearing from among the Jewish sect of the Nazarenes, and therefore a
foreign god. Eloab is a passive participial noun, and applied to Christ in the
phrase mãshiach eloah limmenu, “ the Anointed One cursed for us
that is, by the Law, which
says : “ Cursed is every one that hangeth upon a tree “. The connection in
which eloab is found determines whether it should be taken in a good or in a
bad sense. In the passage before us it is used in any other than in a good
sense. The god is therefore an accursed one of guardians, who is honoured in
the realm of the Little Horn of the Goat. From this it will be seen that Christ
and Antichrist are both denominated “ eloah “, but on different grounds;
Christ, because he became a curse for his people by hanging
pg 62
on a tree as an expiation
for their sins; and Antichrist, he that sets himself up in Christs
place, and finally against him, because of his blasphemy against the Mightiest
of all.
Mahuzzim is the plural of
mahoz, a fortress. It is used tropically in Psalm 6o : 7 : “Ephraim is the
fortress of my head “, i.e., my helmet; and in Prov. 10 : 29, “ a fortress to
the upright is the way of God”, i.e., Gods truth. Protectors,
defenders, guardians are as fortresses to those who trust in them ; hence the
phrase,” Yahweh is my fortress “, i.e., He is my guardian, etc.
But those who glory in the
Eyes and Mouth of the Little Horn of the West, or in the God of Guardians, whom
the Little Horn of the Goat delights to honour (for the Eyes, Mouth, and god
are one and the same power), seek for refuge in other fortresses than Yahweh.
Chrysostom, in his homily on the martyrs of Egypt, says: “The bodies of those
saints fortify the city more effectually for us than impregnable walls of
adamant; and like towering rocks placed around on every side, repel not only
the assaults of enemies that are visible, but the insidious stratagems also of
invisible demons, and counteract and defeat every artifice of the devil as a
strong man overturns the toys of children “. The Greeks and Latins made the
most of these wonderful martyrs. Believing in ghosts, or disembodied human
spirits, they proclaimed the translation of their shades to heaven to act as
mediators and intercessors with the Virgin and her Son; but kept their bones
and dust in church-shrines to protect, defend, or guard them from all enemies,
demons, and other evils to which the flesh is subject. Speaking of these times
of intense superstition, Gibbon says: ‘‘The Christians of the seventh century
had insensibly relapsed into a semblance of paganism; their public and private
vows were addressed to the relics and images that disgraced the temples of the
east; the throne of the Almighty was darkened by a cloud of martyrs, saints,
and angels, the objects of popular veneration; and the Collyridian heretics,
who flourished in the fruitful soil of Arabia, invested the Virgin Mary with
the name and honours of a goddess “. it was to punish the East for these
abominations, that the four prepared angels confining upon the Euphrates—the
Seljuks, Zinghis Khans Moguls, Tamerlanes hosts, and the
Ottoman Turks—were loosed until they should come to be bounded by the Danube,
which defines the political geography appointed to exist between themselves and
“the Rest of the Men (the Holy Roman Empire) which were not killed “—whose
sovereignty was not overthrown—” by these plagues “, inflicted by the four
messenger, or angel, powers, “ yet repented not of the works of their hands,
that they should not worship demonials (the imaginary ghosts of martyrs and
saints) and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood; which
neither can see, nor hear, nor walk: neither repented they of their murders,
nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication (the especial vice of the
priests who are forbidden to marry), nor of their thefts “ (Rev. 9 :14, 15, 20,
21
The bodies and ghosts of
Romish saints and martyrs erected into guardian demons by “ the church “, were
a cheap fortification for a
Pg 63
city, temple, or country,
requiring no rations; and if” the eloquent Chrysostom” be credited, a more
impregnable defence than a whole host of embodied warriors armed to the very
teeth! What chance, then has the unlucky Turk who has no other mahuzzim than
the Dardanelles and fortresses of like construction? Fortunately for him, St.
Patrick of Ireland, St. George of England, St. Andrew of Scotland, and St.
Denis of France, it may be supposed were on his side in the Crimean war; but
how these orthodox guardians could become impregnable fortresses for “the
common hereditary foe and tyrannical bloodhound, the Turk “, as Czar Johann
styled him in 1557, is not very easy to conceive, seeing that his battle cry is
“Down with the Giaours “, which must be particularly offensive to their
brethren, the cloud of guardian demons on the other side.
The chief or prince of the
ecclesiastical element of the Kingdom of Babylon is god, or chief pontiff of
these guardians. He is in the Little Horn of the Goats estate, which is
co-extensive with the territory of that dominion, when he stands up against the
Sar of Israel. Justinian, whom I have indicated as the fittest representative
of the civil element of the Power that has yet appeared in Constantinople in
its dealings with the god, delighted to honour him. In a celebrated letter
written by him to the Bishop of Rome, dated March, 533, and which thenceforth
became part and parcel of the civil law, he is recognized, or acknowledged “,
as the legal head of all the churches of the eastern and western provinces of
the empire. “We suffer not “, says the imperial writer, “anything that belongs to
the state of the churches to be done without submitting it to your holiness,
who art head of all the churches “. In this way “the king who does according to
his will “, acknowledged this “ strange god” as of supreme spiritual authority
over all “ the Bazaars of the Guardians “, which became his.
“To a god whom his
predecessors knew not, to a strange god, shall he do honour.” Previous to the
reign of Constantine this “god of guardians” was unacknowledged by the emperors
and constituted authorities of the Little Horn Power. They are therefore said
not to have known him. There was then no Bishop of Rome, though there was a
principal bishop of the Anti-Novatian or Catholic Church, called Christian, in
Rome. Constantine made this chief of a corrupt majority chief magistrate of
Rome for life, or Lord Mayor, in 313. His jurisdiction was confined to the
city. But in 378, the emperor, who resided in Constantinople, extended his
spiritual authority over all the churches of Italy and Gaul. His supremacy,
however, was not limited to these. It continued to grow, until, in a hundred
and fifty-five years after, Justinian could say to him, “thou ART head of ALL
the churches “, that is, of the Kingdom of Babylon. But while this was the
fact, the Roman Bishop bore no title that indicated it. He shared with the
bishops of Alexandria, Jerusalem, Antioch, and Constantinople, the honorary
title of Patriarch, or Chief Father. These patriarchs had all equal power, and
differed only in respect of rank and precedency; the Bishop of Rome being
considered the first in rank, and this out of respect to the city in which he
presided. A bishop of the name of Leo was the first that claimed jurisdiction
over other
pg 64
churches on the ground of
his being the successor of St. Peter; and when it was decreed at the Council of
Chalcedon that the See of Constantinople should be second to that of Rome with
respect to rank, assigning as a reason for it the pre eminence of the city,
this Patriarch was quite dissatisfied because his pre-eminence was not founded
on something more stable than the dignity of the city, and wished to have it
rest on the authority of Peter as the founder of the See. From this time this
foundation for the pre eminence of the See of Rome was urged with the greatest
confidence; and though the ground on which it is assumed has slender claims to
credibility, it does not appear to have been much disputed.
But the increasing pride,
ambition, and vanity of the rising god were not long content to bear a title
common to others whom he regarded as his inferiors in every respect. He desired
a title expressive of the universality of his acknowledged headship over
ecclesiastical affairs in the Kingdom of Babylon. But the Patriarch of Constantinople,
scarcely less arrogant and ambitious than himself, in a council held at that
city in 588, assumed the title of Universal Bishop, which was confirmed to him
by the council. This aroused the indignation of the contemporary bishop of
Rome, with whom it was a principle to endure no ecclesiastical superior in the
Little Horn dominion. He styled it, “ an execrable, profane, and diabolical
procedure “. in 590, Gregory 1., usually termed “ the Great “ by ecclesiastics,
was the representative of the strange-god power. He wrote a letter to Maurice, who
occupied the Dragon-throne, in which he styles the title ‘a Blasphemous Name by
which all honour is taken from all other priests, while it is foolishly
arrogated by one “. He says, it was offered to the Bishops of Rome by the
Council of Chalcedon, but refused ; ‘‘ why “, then says he, ‘ should we refuse
this title when it was offered, and another assume it without any offer at all
?” He calls upon Maurice to humble and chastise the presumptuous patriarch,
who, by taking upon himself the title would elevate himself above the emperor.
The letter, however, does not appear to have produced any effect; for the
pompous title continued to be borne by the patriarchs of Constantinople.
One of these whose name
was Cynacus in a letter to Gregory subscribed himself ‘‘ Universal Bishop “.
Gregory was greatly displeased, and in consequence treated the bearers of it
uncourteously. These complained to the emperor, who wrote to Gregory, and
advised him to be more friendly in future, and not to insist so far on
punctilios of style as to create a scandal about a title, and to fall out about
a few syllables. Gregory replied to this, ‘‘ that the innovation in the style
did not consist much in the quantity and alphabet; but the bulk of the iniquity
was weighty enough to sink and destroy all. And therefore I am bold to say “,
says he, “ that whoever adopts or affects the title of UNIVERSAL BISHOP has the
pride and character of Antichrist, and is in some manner his forerunner in this
haughty quality of elevating himself above the rest of his order. And indeed
both the one and the other seem to split upon the same rock; for,
65
as pride makes Antichrist
strain his pretension up to GODHEAD, so whoever is ambitious to be called the
only or Universal Prelate, arrogates to himself a distinguished superiority,
and rises, as it were, upon the ruins of the rest “.
Which of the two should
bear the title of Universal Bishop and transmit it to his successors, the
Patriarch of Constantinople or the Patriarch of Rome, was the great politico
ecclesiastical question of the day. Had the dynasty of Maurice continued to
occupy the Dragon-throne of the Little Horn, it is probable that the Bishop of
Rome would has e been excluded from the Babylonian Godship. But it was ordained
otherwise. Phoeas, a centurion, headed a rebellion of the troops against the
emperor, whom he murdered with all his family, and then settled himself on the
throne. This was A.D. 602. Gregory joyfully saluted the fortune of the
assassin, celebrated the deliverance of the people, and the fall of Maurice,
whom he styled, the oppressor. In 604 Gregory died, and was succeeded by
Boniface III., who without scruple adopted the proud title in dispute. He had
importunately begged it of Phocas, with the privilege also of transmitting it
to all his successors. The profligate emperor, to gratify the Inordinate
ambition of this court sycophant, deprived the patriarch of Constantinople of
the title he had hitherto borne, and conferred it upon Boniface, \A D. 607, at the
same time declaring the Church of Rome to be the head of all other
churches. he was very liberal to the
bazaars of the guardians pertaining to the god, commonly called churches “, and
allowed the Pantheon, a temple dedicated to All the Gods by his predecessors,
to be turned into a bazaar or church devoted to All the Saints. Phocas was a
diminutive, ill favoured monster in crime, and therefore the better qualified
for a patron of the Roman bishop, who hailed him as the pious avenger of the
church. One year after the promulgation of the decree, a pillar with a
gilt statue on the top of it, was erected in Rome to the honour of Phocas, with
the follow ing inscription—-Pro innumerabilibus Pietatis ejus benefciis et
proquiete procurata, ac conservata libertate. Thus was memorialized the
fulfillment of the sure word of prophecy, saying, ”To a god of guardians in his
estate, even to a god whom his predecessors knew not, a strange god, shall he
acknowledge and exalt with riches “. He
strained up his pretensions to godhead, and as a god was recognized by the
secular element of the Little Horn.
Pg 66
St. Sophia, which with
10,000 workmen he finished in five years, eleven months, and ten days from the
first foundation, he dedicated twenty five others in Constantinople and its
suburbs to the honour of the Virgin and the saints of the catholic calendar.
Most of these edifices were decorated with marble and gold. His munificence
was diffused over the Holy Land; throughout which monasteries for both sexes
were amply diffused. Almost every saint in the calendar acquired the honor of a
bazaar : and the liberality with which he honored them was boundless. No wood except the doors
was admitted into the construction of St. Sophia. Paul Silentiarius, who beheld
its primitive lustre, enumerates the colours, the shades, and the spots of ten
or twelve marbles, jaspers, and porphyries, which Nature had profusely
diversified, and which were blended and contrasted as it were by a skillful
painter. The triumph of Antichrist ‘ was adorned with the last spoils of
paganism, but the greater part of these cost(y stones was extracted from the
quarries of Asia Minor, the isles and continent of Greece, Egypt, Africa, and
Gaul... A variety of ornaments and figures was curiously expressed in Mosaic;
and the images of Christ, of the Virgin, of saints and of angels, were ...
exposed to the superstition of the Greeks. According to the sanctity of each
object, the precious metals were distributed in thin leaves, or in solid
masses... The spectator was dazzled by the glittering aspect of the cupola ;
the sanctuary} contained forty thousand pounds weight of silver; and the holy
vases and vestments of the altar were of the purest gold, enriched with
inestimable gems.” Such are the words of Gibbon a literal, though inadvertent
interpretation of the testimony with which this paragraph begins.
The Bazaars of the
Guardians “—mivtzahrai mahuzzim. The noun mivtzahrai is derived from the root
bahtzar, which, among other meanings, signifies, to enclose with a wall As a
noun, bétzer signifies ore of gold and silver, precious metals, store, or
treasure so secured. Parkhurst has the following upon the word : “ Derivative,
Bazaar, a kind of covered market-place among the eastern nations, somewhat like
our Exeter ‘Change in London, but frequently much more extensive. Latin, or
rather Punic, Bjrsa, the Burse at Carthage”: equivalent to the French Bourse.
In the English version the phrase is rendered, the most strong holds “, with
which those who compiled the marginal references and readings were not
satisfied; and therefore they have tried to improve it by the words “fortresses
of munitions “. But if the reader can extract any sense out of these
renderings, it is more than I can. Moses Stuart renders it “ fenced strong
holds “ ; and the strange god he styles, “ the god of strong holds, that is,
the god who has power over them “. He confesses, however, that verse 39 is “a
difficult verse, which has occasioned many discrepant interpretations “. He
refers to Lengerke, who, he remarks. “ makes the fenced strong holds to mean
temples, and the sentiment to be, that the tyrant will do for temples and their
foreign gods the same thing that V. 38 says he will do in respect to the god of
strong holds, i.e., he will bestow many liberal presents upon them “. As
neither Lengerke nor Moses Stuart seem to see anything in Daniel (the last
chapter perhaps
Pg 67
excepted) beyond the times
of Antiochus, some hundred and sixty years or so before the birth of Jesus
Christ, their temples and “ strong holds” have relation to “fortified strong
holds of foreigners” attacked by Antiochus, and temples of idols. Lengerke has
almost fallen upon the correct meaning. Had he referred the bétzar, heemantively
written mivtzahr, to the temples of guardian saints instead of to those of the
pagan Greeks, he would have hit the mark exactly : but then how could he be so
uncharitable as to turn the pious father of Christendom “ into a strange god,
and all the ecclesiastical buildings of that dominion dedicated to saints and
angels, into Bazaars, or places of traffic in spiritual merchandise and the
bodies and souls of men
The churches, chapels, and
cathedrals, then, are the “ most strong holds “ of the superstition of the
kingdom of Babylon. They are the houses of business dedicated by the prospering
craft to “ guardian spirits “. There are the images and pictures of the saints.
They are Saints Houses in which are deposited their shrines ; silver,
gold, and ivory crucifixes ; old bones, and various kinds of votive trumpery.
They are literally “ dens of thieves “ without ever having been the houses of
the Father—dens, where people are robbed of their money under false pretenses.
They are places where pews are sold by auction, the proudest sittings being
knocked down to Mammons greatest favourites ; places where fairs of
vanity and deceit are held for” pious objects “ ; and where spiritual empires
pretend to “ cure souls” in consideration of so much per annum. In view of
these facts, the scriptural epithet bestowed upon the church buildings of the
apostasy is most appropriate. They are truly Bazaars of spiritual merchandise;
and the prospering craft, “ the great men of the earth “ made rich by trading
in their wares, are the Bazaar-Men who extort all kinds of goods from their
customers by putting them in fear, and comforting them with counterfeits upon
some hank in the world to come. They buy and sell under license from the
Ecclesiastical Power, having received its mark upon their foreheads, or on
their right hands. The reader may find their catalogue of merchandise in the
eighteenth of Revelation, twelfth and thirteenth verses. Among the articles of
barter for spirituals are tithes, bodies,* and souls of men. But the trade of
these soul-merchants is in any thing but a satisfactory state at present. Great
numbers of their customers have discovered that the profit is all upon one
side; nor are they backward in proclaiming that when a favourable opportunity
presents they will break up the iniquitous concern, and make the cheats
disgorge their unhallowed gains. This will be a sad day, a day of universal bankruptcy
for the weeping and wailing merchants of Babylon; “ for no man buyeth their
merchandise any more “. When a mans trade is thus extinguished,
nothing but ruin states the shattered tradesman in the face.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*How remarkably this is
fulfilled in the trade carried on by the ‘ministers of religion “in dead bodies
They” consecrate “ their bazaar,, or a piece of ground for the burial of the
dead. Having provided these” holy “ receptacles, they persuade their followers
that not to be buried there is to hasve the burial of a dog or a heathen. This
causes the bodies of the dead to be brought to them for religious burial, which
they perform for a sum of money
expressed or understood.
Pg 68
This is the fate that
awaits the preachers of all the gospels of the Bazaars—gospels other than Paul
preached, and which leave men in ignorance and disobedience; gospels which make
them partisans of human crotchets and traditions; and the apologists of any
thing sincerely professed as a substitute for the truth.
It is a remarkable feature
in this prophecy that the Bazaars for priestly and clerical wares are
distinguished from houses or shops of fair and honourable trade, by being
styled Bagaars of Mahuzzim. When
jewelers, bakers, hardwareman, etc., open stores, they emblazon their signs
with their own names; but when the clergy open houses for the exercise of their
profession they impose upon the ignorant public the idea that they belong to
the apostles and their brethren! They say that these ancient worthies are still
alive, and in heaven, and greatly interested in human affairs, especially in
church buildings and things transacted there ! Hence they put their statues in
niches and on parapets, and make them presents of the churches, as is clear
from the names they bear; as, St. Sophia at Constantinople, St. Peters
at Rome, Our Ladys at Paris, St. Pauls at London, and so forth.
The imposition, however, consists in this, that while they give these buildings
to the “ departed spirits “ they call by these names, they will not permit the
gospel the apostles preached, and the institutions they ordained, to be
announced within their walls; but perversely persist in excluding it, and in
making it of none effect by their vain and foolish traditions. But the whole
system is a cheat, and a very profitable one for the present to those who live
by it. It is ecclesiastical craft caused to prosper by the civil power; and it
will prosper until Israels Commander shall bring it to an end, and
cause the truth by his energy to prevail at last.
Having illustrated
somewhat in detail the terms of this remarkable prophecy, I proceed to remark
that the Little Horn of the Goat and Daniels Fourth Beast are both
representative of” The King of Fierce Countenance” at the time when the
Commander-in-Chief shall break the former in pieces ; and the Saints shall take
away the dominion of the latter, to consume and destroy it as the fiery flame
and wheels of burning fire issuing forth from the Ancient of Days. The Goats
Little Horn and the god he honours, are equivalent to the Beast, the Little
Horn ‘with its Eyes and Mouth, and the Ten Horns, at the time of the breaking
of the Goat-Horn. This identity of representation will not have been always so;
for about the conclusion of the eighth century, the Goat-Horn and its god only
represented the Constantinopolitan Civil Power, whose jurisdiction had almost
entirely ceased from Italy and the West; and the Roman Ecclesiastical, which,
disappearing from the East, was recognized in the Popes by all the nations of
the West, who, in the words of Gregory II. to the emperor, “revere as a god
upon earth, the apostle St. Peter, whose image you threaten to destroy”; and
therefore, also, so regarded “ Christs Viceregent “, who claimed to be
Peters successor in the god-ship. The Ten Horns with crowns, and the
Eleventh Horn, of the Beast, have never yet been subjugated to the Goat-Horn;
though the territory on which they exist as powers has before their existence:
Pg 69
not all the territory of
the Eleventh Horn, however, but so much of it as it possesses within the
frontiers of the old Roman dominion.
But, though the Little
Horn of the Goat, or Constantinopolitan Power, has never been Lord of the
European Continental Powers represented by the Eleven Horns, the time is at
hand when it, as Gog, will acquire that dominion. The feeble Ottoman must be
ejected from the throne to make room for a more powerful and vigorous dynasty.
This dynasty will be the last occupant 0f the throne 0f
the Constantinopolitan Power for a thousand years. During its enthroned
existence it will be all that is affirmed of the Little Horn of the Goat and
of” the King that does according to its will “, in the eighth and eleventh
chapters of Daniel. At this crisis, its
power will be mighty, and it will destroy wonderfully, and prosper, and
practice. As Lord of Europe and Asia the continental dynasties of the West will
be gathered unto it. Thes will acknowledge its supremacy, and seek to it as the
shadow and strength of their dominions. The Constantinopolitan Little Horn
Power will then be in final fourth-beast manifestation, “ dreadful, and
terrible, and strong exceedingly; having great iron teeth ;
devouring and breaking in pieces, and stamping the residue WITH THE FEET of it;
and having ten horns “. It is while the post Ottoman dynasty occupies the
throne that the “ stamping the residue w ith the feet of” the beast is
accomplished. The Feet represent a power, a stamping or conquering power, which
subjects “ the residue “ to its dominion. The claws of these feet are of brass,
while the feet themselves are part of iron and part of clay ; for the feet of
Nebuchadnezzars Image, and those of the Fourth Beast, are
representative of the same power. The brass, the iron, and
the clay, then, are representative of the national elements constituting the
power. The Greeks, and the Latins, mixed up with the heterogeneous peoples
under the guardianship of the Czar, moulded into form under his imperial
sceptre, are the Feet-power that stamps the residue. The residue may be discerned
in the names of countries and races hereafter to be confederated under Gog as their appointed”
guard “.
While the Feet are
occupied in stamping upon Judah and his allies in the glorious land, the Fourth
Beast Power and Little Horn of the Goat are fitly represented by the Image
Nebuchadnezzar saw in his dream. During the reign of the Clay-Dynasty the image
stands upon its Feet for the first time ; having incorporated in it, not only
Nimroudia and Persia, but the nation of the Greeks, or brazen goats; and “the
Holy Roman Empire” and its papal kingdoms, or iron leg and toes.
But, although the Greeks
and Latins are all moulded into ONE IMPERIALITY held together by the Miry Clay
which gives it form, the distinctiveness of civil and ecclesiastical
organization is still preserved. The Two-Horned Beast, the False Prophet, and
the Kings of the Earth, are not extinct. The French Empire being at length
probably transmuted into a Bourbon-kingdom, and the Russian dynasty being on
the throne of Constantinople, it becomes the Sovereign element of the
two-horned symbol. When the Little Horn of the Goat is broken to pieces on the
mountains of Israel, the Constantinopolitan power
Pg 70
collapses, being seen no
more in the Holy Land for a thousand years. The Two-Horned Beast, the False
Prophet, and the Kings of the Earth, are no longer capable of being represented
by the Assyrian Image, or Little Horn of the Goat resting upon the territory of
the Northern of the Four Horns; because there they will have lost dominion,
their jurisdiction after the smiting of the Image by the Stone Power being
restricted to Europe, whose Romano-papal constitution these symbols represent.
It was the invasion of
their empire by these avengers of the divine law against images, and the bowing
down to them, that stirred up the Orientals to the consideration of the
subject, and at length to their opposition to the practice. The monks zealously
defended the images, which were also fondly cherished by the clergy and people
of Constantinople ; while the rude and remote districts of Asia were strangers
to the innovation.
In 726, the controversy
issued in a revolution. An adventurer named Conora appeared from the mountains
of Isauria, filled with zeal and indignation against the Images. He was raised
to the throne of Constantinople by the Anatolian legions which he commanded,
and being installed reigned as the founder of a new dynasty under the imperial
name of Leo III. or the Isaurian.
Pg 71
During the first ten years
of his reign his policy was moderate and cautious; too much so, indeed, to
satisfy the views of the reformers who had effected his elevation. During that
period of toil and danger he bowed before the idols he despised, and satisfied
the Roman god with the annual profession of his orthodoxy and zeal. But at
length their impatience caused him to be more decided. He proscribed the
existence as well as the use of religious pictures; the churches of
Constantinople and the provinces were cleansed from idolatry; and the images of
Christ, the Virgin and the saints, were demolished, or a smooth surface of
plaster was spread over the walls of the edifice. The zeal of his party, styled
the Iconoclasts, or Image-Breakers, was rendered effective by the cordial co
operation of his five successors, and the East and West were involved in a
stormy conflict of one hundred and twenty years. The Iconoclasts, however, were
at last suppressed by the Idolaters, who in the reign of the empress Theodora,
\.D. 842, finally succeeded in re establishing the adoration of the idols of
the dcmonials whom they delighted to honour. This system of idolatry continued
upwards of six hundred years after, the government and people being sunk in the
grossest superstition. They repented not a/ the works of their hands.” The
Deity, therefore, sent against them the Four Euphratean Angels, who at length
extinguished their dominion by the capture of Constantinople, AD 1453
While the patient East
under the Iconoclast emperors abjured with reluctance her idols, they were
fondly cherished and vigorously defended by the independent zeal of the
Italians. A distant and dangerous station amidst the barbarians of the West,
excited the spirit and freedom of the Bishops of Rome. Their popular election
endeared them to the Romans ; the public and private indigence was relieved by
their ample revenue ; and the weakness or neglect of the emperors of
Constantinople compelled them to consult, both in peace and war, the temporal
safety of the city. In the school of adversity the Roman god insensibly imbibed
the qualities and ambitions of a prince; so
that after the loss of her legions arid provinces, the genius and fortune
of the popes again restored the supremacy of Rome. “It is agreed “, says
Gibbon, “that in the eighth century, their dominion was founded on rebellion,
and that the rebellion was produced and justified by the heresy of the
Iconoclasts “ : in other words, that the temporal power of the popes is based
upon a determined adhesion to the worship of demonials and of their idols of
gold and silver, wood and stone.
Pope Gregory II., the
founder of the papal monarchy, commenced the controversy with Leo the Isaurian,
who avowed his intention of breaking the Images in Rome, and of transporting
the pope in chains an exile to Constantinople if he did not submit to the
imperial edict, which abolished the images of Christ. and the Virgin. and of
the angels, martyrs, and saints, in all the churches of Italy. The Italians
swore to live and die in the defense of the pope, and of the images of his
guardian saints. Leo despatched an army into Italy to establish his decree, but
being defeated by the idolaters with great slaughter, the edict could not be
enforced. This was a great triumph
Pg 72
for the Roman god. He convened a synod of anti-Iconoclastic
bishops, with whose consent he pronounced a general excommunication against
all who should by word or deed attack the tradition of the fathers and the
images of the saints. The emperor, of course, was tacitly involved in the
sentence, though the god of Roman thunder did not make a personal application
of it to Leo. His moderation delayed and prevented the election of a new
emperor for Italy and the West; and the Italians were exhorted not to separate
from the body of the Roman monarchy so that till the imperial coronation of
Charlemagne, the government of Rome and Italy was exercised in the name of the
successors of Constantine.
Rome was now free from the
foreign yoke of emperor or king, but reduced to her ancient territory from
Viterbo to Terracina, and from Narni to the mouth of the Tiber. Her ruins
presented the sad image of depopulation and decay : her previous slavery was a
habit, her liberty an accident—the effect of superstition, and the object of
her own amazement and terror. Br the necessity of their situation, her
inhabitants were cast into the rough model of a republican govern
ment. The style of” The
Roman Senate and People “ was revived, but the spirit
w as fled ; and their new
independence was disgraced by the tumultuous conflict of licentiousness and
oppression. The want of laws was supplied by their religion, and their foreign
and domestic counsels were moderated by the authority of the Bishop, whom they
became accustomed to consider as the first magistrate or prince of the city.
Here then swas formed the
nucleus of a new power, consisting of a god upon earth, and a scanty remnant,
the offspring of slaves and strangers, inhabitants of Rome and its territory;
feeble, unwarlike, and despicable in the eves of the victorious
barbarians. As often as the Franks or
Lombards expressed their most bitter contempt of a foe, they called him a
Roman; “ and in this name “says the bishop Luitprand, “ we include whatever is
base, whatever is cowardly, whatsoever is perfidious, the extremes of avarice
and luxury, and every vice that can prostitute the dignity of human nature “.
Such were the popes children at the origin of his principality, a
fitting progeny for such a sire. The Lombards were his immediate neighbours,
and under their king Astolphus, the equal enemy of the pope and emperor. The
love of arms and rapine were congenial to them; and both the prince and people
w ere irresistibly tempted by the disorders of Italy, the nakedness of Rome,
and the unwarlike profession of her new chief. They summoned the city to
acknowledge the victorious Lombard as her lawful
sovereign; and to pay an annual
tribute of a price of gold as the ransom of each citizen, and the sword of
destruction was unsheathed to exact the penaly of her disobedience.
Had the pope and his
Romans been left to their own resources in this extremity, the world might
never has e witnessed among the ten barbaric kingdoms of Europe. a power
answering to the “ Little Horn with EYES like the eyes of a man, and a M0UTH
speaking great things “, as seen by Daniel on the head of the Fourth Beast. The
little popedom was too feeble to defend itself against its rapacious
neighbours-
73
so that if succour could not have been
procured from a stronger power, it must have perished in the alpha of its
existence. In this event it would be impossible to say what would have been the
constitution of Europe for a thousand years past. This, however, max be
considered as certain, “the Holy Roman Empire” would never have existed; and “
the Saints “ would have escaped that long and terrible war by which they have
been prevailed against in all the countries of its dominion. But “ the powers
that be are ordained of God “, with reference to an end appointed. He scourges
the wicked with the evil works of their own hands. They founded the papacy,
which has whipped them who with it warred against the saints with scorpions ;
while He has overruled its policy to the formation of a situation which will
favour the manifestation of His righteousness and power.
In their distress the”
strange god “ and his feeble folk sought the protection of the king of the
French. The ambassadors of Pepin and of the Greek emperor accompanied the pope
to the court of Astolphus, king of the Lombards, to persuade him to peace and
amity with the papists. But he would listen to nothing short of absolute
submission to his sceptre, which would have been fatal to the ambition of the
popes. Finding nothing could be done, Stephen III. hastened to Pepin to excite
his pity for St. Peters patrimony, and his indignation against
Astolphus who was ready to devour it. Prompted by the love of glory and
superstition, Pepin yielded to the solicitation of the Roman Bishop, and
proclaimed himself the champion of the papal church. Being the first of the
Barbarian Kings who stood up in defense of the “ Holy See “, the king of France
came to be honoured by the popes with the title of “ Eldest Son of the Church
“. An alliance was formed between France and the Little Papacy; which in forty six
years from Stephens visit to Pepin expanded into the Roman Empire of
the West, called “ the Holy Roman Empire “, and represented by the Little Horn
of Daniels Fourth Beast.
From A.D. 754 to A.D. 799
at Christmas, was the period occupied in the establishment of the Little Horn
power; which, like the Little Horn of the Goat, budded forth upon the territory
of the Kingdom of Babylon, but confined to its western division. The first
event in the formation of the Little Horn of the West was the overthrow of Leo
the Isaurians army against the saint-idols of Rome and Italy ; the next
was the recognition of Charles Martel and his heirs as Patricians of Rome; the
assumption of the championship of the papal church by Pepin; his coronation by
the pope; and his compulsion of Astolphus to restore its possessions, and to
respect its sanctity: the third series of events was the plucking up by the
roots of the Lombard kingdom by Charlemagne, the son of Pepin, A.D. 774; his
investment with the honours of Patrician, being presented with the keys of the
shrine of St. Peter as a pledge and symbol of sovereignty; and with a holy
banner which it was their right and duty to unfurl in defence of the church and
city: and his coronation by the pope, the people shouting, “ Long life and
victory to Charles, the most pious Augustus, crowned by God the great pacific
emperor of the Romans ! “ The
Pg 74
patrimony of St. Peter was enlarged through the
liberality of Pepin and Charlemagne, by the spoliation of the Lombards and the
emperor of Constantinople, to the dimensions of an earthly kingdom of respectable
limits, constituting the Eye and Mouthship proper of the Roman god. The gift of
this enlarged estate did not, however, alienate it from the empire of
Charlemagne; for in his life and at his death, Ravenna and Rome were numbered
in the list of his metropolitan cities.
At this crisis of affairs,
there existed on the territory of the
Kingdom of Babylon two Little Horn Powers, THE STRANGE God, and the Ten Horn or
Toe Kingdoms. I would remark here in passing that it has hitherto been found
impossible to define these kingdoms according to the number given. Several tens
have been guessed at, but the lists bear inaccuracy on the face of them. The kingdoms
are represented by ten horns, and ten toes, because there would be that number
appear on the territory of the Roman Beast betw een A.D. 476 and AD.799 the
interval between the fall and restoration of the Western Roman Empire. In part
however of this period only seven independent monarchies can be found, three of
the original ten being “ plucked up by the roots “. At the time of the
revelation of Jesus Christ and the Saints, there will also be ten kingdoms whose territories will embrace
those of the original Gothic Ten. In past centuries their number has varied.
The ten kingdoms contemporary with the smiting of the Image by the Stone-power,
or with the slaying and burning of the Fourth Beast by the Saints, in relation to the old
Gothic kingdoms, are as so many trees to their original sapling-roots. The
Gothic kingdoms of the period indicated were the roots of the present kingdoms,
which are designated in prophecy by the number of Romano-Gothic kingdoms extant
at the beginning and when the end comes. There will then be ten ; therefore,
without regard to their numerical variation, in previous ages, they are styled
the ten kingdoms of the Beast.
The time of the end, then,
is the period of the ripening and unsealing of the words of the book; so that
it may speak intelligibly to “ the w ise “. The opening and unsealing is
effected by the events of the time being an unmistakable fulfilment of what is
written so that every one of” the wise “cannot fail to understand.
The time of the end has
its beginning, and ending; and period
intermediate between the beginning and the
ending. Its approach is
pg 75
marked by an event
connected with Egypt; and its ending by a consummation connected with Israel.
The fortieth verse of the eleventh chapter announces its beginning by informing
the reader that “at “, or near, “the time of the end shall the King of the South
push at him “. For the southern horn of the Goat to push at him is for the
Egyptian Power to attack the Little Horn Power; for” the king” or Little Horn
of the Goat is the power last discoursed of in the preceding context. This
attack, then, upon the Ottoman régime of the kingdom of Babylon, by the Ruler
of Egypt, including Arabia, etc., indicates the approach of the Time of the
End. The conclusion of it is marked by the event predicted in the seventh verse
of the last chapter, which is to be completed at the end of” a time, times, and
an half “, and noted in the words, “ When he shall have accomplished to scatter
the power of the holy people, all these things shall be finished “. Between
these two orders of events, the attack of Egypt on the Porte, and the
reconcentration of the power of the Twelve Tribes, the vision speaks, and no more of the book of
Daniel remains to be fulfilled—the Time of the End will have passed away, in
other words, with the establishment of the Kingdom of God.
The reader, on turning to
the eleventh chapter, will find that no more is said about the King of the
South, or of Egypt, after the ships of Chittirn interfered in his behalf
against Antiochus, the King of the North, until the fortieth verse. Between the
first event of this verse, then, and that of the thirtieth is an interval of
about 2000 years. During this long time no note is made of Egypt in the
prophecy, nor of the King of the North from the time of the Maccabees, through
whom Judah was ‘ holpen with a little help “ (verse 34). The connecting link in
the prophetic chain between B.C. 160 and A.D. 1838 is the Little Horn of the
Goat which incorporated the Assyrian kingdom of the north, and the kingdom of
the south, into its own dominion. But in the year 1829, Egypt, which had been
so long in vassalage to the Little Horn, or Constantinopolitan power, revolted
; and reappeared on the map of the Babylonian world as a kingly power. Mehemet
Ali then established himself as king of the south. He attacked and conquered
Syria, and for a time was lord ascendant of the east. This exaltation opened
new prospects to Mehemet, and he aspired to the throne of the Sultan. The time
of the end was approaching, there being only twent1 two years of the evening-morning 2400 years to
expire. In I838 he “ pushed at” the Sultan. Hitherto he had confined his
operations to Egypt, Arabia, and Syria, but now at the closing of the war he
pushed for Constantinople, and advanced as far as Smyrna; and but for the
interference of Russia, Austria, Prussia, and England, unconsciously “ to
establish the vision “, he would doubtless have dethroned him. Wearied of this
state of affairs, these powers undertook to establish peace, and to place
things on a permanent footing. They ordered the king of the south to surrender
Syria including Palestine to the sovereignty of the Little Horn, and to restore
its fleet which had revolted from the Sultan during the war. Mehemet refused to
do either, contending that Syria was his as a part of his kingdom by right of
conquest for ever, and the fleet as the spoils
Pg 76
of war. These four powers,
however, were not to be trifled with. They were willing that the throne of
Egypt should be hereditary in his family; but resolved that he should only be
Pacha of Syria for life. But the king of the south would not yield, and the
result was that the allied fleet under Sir Charles Napier bombarded the cities
of the Syrian sea-board, and took possession of St. Jean dAcre. They again offered him “
all that part of Syria, extending from the Gulf of Suez to the Lake of
Tiberias, together with the province of Acre for life “, if he would restore
the Little Horns fleet. But he still refused, and in the autumn of
1840, they compelled the Egyptians to evacuate the country,, and determined he
should not have it at all; and threatened that if he did not restore the fleet
in ten clays, they as would make Alexandria too hot to hold him. Prudence, said
to be the better part of valour, at length overcame the obstinacy of the king
of the south ; he therefore yielded, and surrendered the ships within the time.
Thus, the Holy Land was w rested from the Ruler of Egypt and restored to the
sovereignty of the
Constantinopolitan Little Horn, which still continues to possess the country.
Such was the important
series of events which marked the approaching termination of the 2,400 years,
and the commencing of the Time of the End. The king of the souths
pushing at “the king “ terminating in the disposal of the Holy Land is
evidential of the rime approaching to which Yahweh refers in Lev. 26 42, saying, “ I will remember my covenant
with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and I will remember the land “. The king of the
south claimed the land as his for ever; but Yahweh hath said, “ The land shall
not be sold for ever; for the land is mine “. If then the God of Israel would not permit the
people of his own nation to alienate it from one to another for ever, He would
be far from permitting a Gentile power to possess it, or the Allies to grant it
him, for ever. The hand of Yahweh may be clearly discerned in the events of
this epoch. He hardened the Ruler of Egypts heart not to accept the
land on any other terms than his own, which were certain not to be granted. if
they had yielded to his demand, the present “ eastern question” involving the
overthrow of the Ottoman dynasty of the Little Horn, could not have been
created. if the Allies had allowed the king of the sooth to retain possession
of the Holy Land, the Frog Power could have made no demands on the Sultan for
the protectorate of the Holy Places. The application must have been made at
Alexandria instead of Constantinople, which would have deprived Russia of the
poster of interference, having no access to Egypt by land, and her fleets being
shot up in the Baltic and Black Sea. But in 1840 the time had nearly come to
put things in train for “
avenging the holy “, which
had been so long trodden under foot of the w orst of the Gentiles. It was
necessary, therefore, to place the land under the sovereignty of the Porte, so
that when the question of the Holy Places should be mooted by the Frog Power,
it might stir up the King of the North to jealousy, and bring him into
collision with the Little Horn. The
transfer, then, of the land from Egypt to the Porte prepared the way lot the
demands of the Frog Power on the Sultan; the granting of these stirred up the
pg 77
King of the North to send
Menschikoff to pick a quarrel with the Sultan, who having rejected his demands
found it necessary to prepare for the worst. Meantime the King of the North
crossed the Pruth, and took up his position in the Moldo Wallachiari
principalities of the Little Horn. It is clear, then, that as far as
statesmanship is concerned, the attack of the Allied Powers on Egypt in
1840, and their
restitution of the Holy Land to the Porte, was a great political blunder. They
should have left it in the possession of the King of the South, or have given
it to the Jews under their joint protectorate, and the Crimean phase of the
Eastern Question, with all its terrible accompaniments, would never have
occurred. But their counsel was turned into foolishness by Yahweh, whose
purposes are diametrically opposed to theirs. Their purpose is to establish
Gentile sovereignty over the East for ever : while, on the contrary, His avowed
intention is to restore the kingdom to Israel with dominion over the world.
These projects are as opposite as the poles, and each project has its policy.
The European Powers unsheathed the sword, that the purpose of the strongest
might be established. The West was sanguine of speedy and entire success. The
boastings of England and France were premature. When they don their armour
Powers no more than men should boast; it is time enough for that when they come
to put it off. Woefully will these
western powers be deceived in the result of the coming struggle. The Ottoman
empire will be dried up, and “ the sick man “ must die in spite of all their
efforts to save him. The sure word of prophecy is against them, and shines upon
their patients doom as near,
sudden, and complete. He is already in articlo mortis, and his efforts
but the convulsive energies of an expiring
man.
The rest of the events
predicted from the fortieth verse of this chapter to the second verse of chapter
twelve all belong to the time of the end, and are yet future. The king of the
north is to come against the Little Horn king, and to sweep away the reigning
dynasty; many countries are to be overthrown; the land of Egypt will be taken
from its Mohammedan rulers ; the Holy Land will be invaded by the northern
king; his power will be broken there; the nations will be in such trouble as
they were never in before; the Lord Jesus Christ will appear on the arena of
conflict; the dead will be raised, and the righteous glorified; and the Kingdom
of God established on the ruin of the Kingdom of Men. These are speaking
events, trumpet-tongued proclaiming the purpose of Yahweh in all His doings
among the children of men.
Pg 78
The Greco-Assyrian Horn
Power, as we have already seen, was in its origin the Kingdom of Babylon
incorporated with the Alexandrian Empire, afterwards acquired by the
Seleucidae, and by this dynasty surrendered to the Romans about sixty-five
years before Christ. Till A.D. 324, ROME was exclusively the throne of the
Greco-Assyrian Kingdom of Babylon; but from that date until the fall of the
Western Empire about A.D. 476, the Power was enthroned in Rome and
Constantinople, the former city being the place of the Senate and of the junior
emperor, while the latter was the palatial residence of the chief. On the
re-conquest of Italy from the Goths in the reign of Justinian, Rome was reduced
to the rank of the second city of the Greco-Assyrian, or Constantinopolitan,
dominion; but still retained her ecclesiastical pre-eminence, being the throne
of the Chief Pontiff of the Kingdom of Babylon.
On the revival of the
Latin empire of the west under Charlemagne, the separation between the East and
West became complete. The Constantinopolitan continued the Greco-Assyrian
Dragon-power, but deprived of its jurisdiction and authority over the West.
This surrender of dominion to the New Confederacy of the West is
apocalyptically represented in the saying, ‘ And the Dragon gave him his power,
and his throne, and great authority” (Rev. 13 : 2) ; but what he retained was
Greek and Assyrian.
This blending of the
Romano-Greek power with the Assyrian is the reason why the Little Horn of the
Goat is represented as coming out of one of its four horns. They occupy tine
and the same territory; that is, where the Seleucidian dynasty once ruled, the
Little Horns dynasties afterwards
ruled ; and where the Little Horns present dynasty now rules, a
Russian dynasty from the north will probably be enthroned ; so that when this
form of things obtains, the northern horn and the Little Horn will be blended
into one power, still Constantinopolitan,
but with a Russian instead of an Ottoman for its chief.
But before this can be
accomplished these words to Daniel must be fulfilled : “ And the King of the
North shall rush on hike a tempest against him with chariots and horsemen, and
with many ships; and he shall enter into countries and overwhelm and pass over
“. This plainly intimates w ar between
the two horns in the time of the end; and such a war too that will sweep all
before the King of the North. He will rush on against him both by land and
sea, his forces being distinguished by their numerical strength in “ chariots
“, or artillery, calvary and ships. The result of this tornado will be a
successful one, for he will “ overwhelm
and pass over “.
The attack, answering to
the words of the prophecy, has not yet commenced. All the western European
world prophesies the im possibility of the King of the North doing anything
with his ships against the combined fleets of the Little Horns allies l
But to “ overwhelm and pass over “ is
to prevail. He has only to bide his time, and to look out for eventualities.
The elements have interposed for Russia in great extremity ; and we know it is
written, “ Thou breakest the ships of
Tarshiah with an east wind “ (Psa. 48- 7). In the absence of this, however,
complications will doubtless arise in the West,
which may divert the
attention of the Ottomans allies from the Euxine. This diversion will
be Russias opportunity; and when seized, the movement of the King of
the North will answer to the full force of the prophetic word.
The tempest, then, is
gathering. The King of the North is preparing his hosts, and fortifying with
all the forces that iron can afford him, against the “drying up” Euphratean
power and its infatuated protectors, until the time arrives to use them with effect. The Turks are alive to the
danger they are in, and the French and English have proclaimed the integrity
and independence of the Ottoman empire. But things are not yet quite ripe. The
position of Prussia, Austria, and Germany yet delays the rushing forth of the
storm in all its violence. Something must arise to cause these powers to
declare themselves on one side or the other. Prussia and Austria have not
declared their policy on the Eastern Question : they also fear the volcanic
elements of their own dominions, and the ambitious projects of the ruler of the
French. Maritime disasters, revolutionary outbreaks, or Russian appeals to their
dynastic interests and fears, may necessitate their abandonment of neutrality
and the declaration of a policy by one or both of them in favour of the king of
the north. The division of the Kingdom of Babylon into two belligerent sections
will then be complete, and Russia will be overwhelming. The rush of nations
then ensuing will be terrific, and is well described by the prophet, who says,
“Hark! a multitude of many peoples making an uproar as the noise of seas. Hark
! a tumult among peoples, warring as a tumult of mighty waters ; they rage
against peoples like a roar of many waters “ (Isa. 17 : 12). This is Isaiahs
description of things when “the nations are angry” (Rev. i : x8) and the King
of the North rushes on like a tempest against the Little Horn. At present it is
only the gathering of the storm, but when begun, who can say with effect,
Peace, be still “ ?
The king of the norths
career for a time will be most successful. Some of the countries he is to enter
into and overwhelm are Egypt and the Goodly Land. “He shall send forth his hand
upon countries: and the land of Egypt shall not escape. But he shall have power
over the treasures of gold and of silver, and over all the precious things of
Egypt : and the Libyans and Ethiopians shall be at his steps.” These are the
forty second and forty third verses, and explain somewhat the passage in the
fortieth, that “ He shall enter into the countries, and shall overwhelm and
pass over “. Then follows the saying in
the forty first verse, “ He shall enter also into the goodly land “. To do what
is foretold of him in regard to Egypt implies the conquest of Turkey; because
not being a maritime power he cannot get
at Egypt and Palestine (unless in alliance with a naval power) until he first
overwhelm the Ottoman.
The last country he will
invade will be the Holy Land; whose covenanted limits are from “the entering
into Hamath” to the Nile, for its western frontier; and from thence by the Red
Sea to the Persian Gulf for its south line; and from the Gulf along the
Euphrates to the mountains of Amanus for its eastern side. He will not be able
Pg 80
to occupy the whole
country, the south and south east of it being held by his antagonists ; for it
is written in the prophecy, “ But these shall escape out of his hand, Edom, and
Moab, and the chief of the children of Ammon “ ; the reason of their escape
being because they will then be in the hands of a powerful antagonist.
1.Their geographical position is the same.
Gogs country is the north parts in relation to the Holy Land ; as it is
written, “ Thou shalt come from thy place out of the north parts “. Gog is
therefore king of the north, his place or country being there. -
2.They are both the adversaries of Israel,
and the invaders of their country. The eleventh chapter of Daniel abundantly
proves this in relation to the king of the north ; and of Gog, Yahweh saith,
Thou shalt come up against my people Israel, as a cloud to cover the land “.
3.The time they invade the land
is the same. The king of the north invades it in the time of the end ; and of
Gog it is said, ‘ It shall be in the latter days. and I will bring thee against
my land”
4.
The same peoples are named as components of their armies. The Libyans and Ethiopians are at the steps
of the king of the north; and in the enumeration of Gogs forces,
it says “ Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya
with them “.
5. Hostile tidings come
from the east and north which excite the king of the north to fury ; while
tidings also come to Gog from the same quarter to deter him from invading the Holy Land.
6. The king of the north
encounters the Little Horn ; and Gog is
antagonized by Sheba and Dedan, and the merchants of Tarshish and the young
lions thereof” the Anglo Indian power— the ancient ally “ of the Little
Horn.
7. They both meet with the
same fare, at the same time, in the same place, and by the same power. The ‘
king of fierce countenance stands up against the Prince of princes ; the king of the north encounters
Michael the Great Prince; and Gog is smitten by Adonai Yahweh. They all three
come to their end with none to help them ; they all fall upon the mountains of
Israel, and consequent upon their overthrow Israel is delivered.
These seven particulars
prose that Gog and the king of the north are but different titles for the same
power; and the title given to Gog in the thirty eighth and thirty ninth
chapters of Ezekiel proves that this northern power is no other than the
Russian. In these places the prophet is addressed by Yahweh as the
representative of Him who is to vanquish Gog and to deliver Israel. Hence, he says to him, “ Son of Man, set thy face against Gog, the land of
Magog, prince of Rosh, Meshekh, and Thuval, and prophesy against him “. In this
title to
Pg 81
the prophecy the
antagonists are indicated, namely, the Son of Man (ben-adam) or seed of
the Woman, on the one side; and the Prince of Rosh, the Head of the Serpent
Confederacy, on the other. Hence, by understanding Gogs title, the
reader may know which of “ the powers that be” is chosen of God to personate
the Serpents Head when it is bruised by the Womens Seed.
The question as to what
nations are signified by Rosh, Meshekh, and Thuval, has been long since
determined by the learned. The celebrated Bochart about the year 1640 ,
observed in his elaborate researches into Sacred Geography, that Rãs, or
Rösh, is the most ancient form under which history makes mention of the
name of Russia; and he contended that Rosh and Mèshekh, properly
denote the nations of Moscovy and Russia. “ It is credible “, says he, “ that
from Rosh and Meshekh (that is, the Rhossi and Moschi) of whom Ezekiel speaks,
descended the Russians and Muscovites, nations of the greatest celebrity in
European Scythia “. We have indeed ample .and positive testimony that the
Russian nation was called Rãs by the Greeks in the earliest period in
which we find it mentioned, as, “ the Rosh are a Scythian nation bordering on the
northern Taurus “. And their own historian says, “ It is related that the
Russians (whom the Greeks called Rös, and ‘sometimes Rösos) derived
their name from Ros, a valiant man, who delivered his nation from the yoke of
its tyrants”.
Thus then we discern the modern names of
Russia and Moscow in the Bible names adduced by Ezekiel. It is not difficult
also to recognize in Thuvahl, or Tubi, or as the Greeks wrote it Thobel,
a name which naturally connects itself with them; and which in conjunction
with them tends in a very remarkable manner to determine and fix the proper
object of the prediction. The river Tobol gives name to the city of Tobolium,
or Tobolski, the metropolis of the extensive region of Siberia, lying
immediately eastward of the territories of Muscovy. Ehobol and Meshekh,
are mentioned together by Ezekiel, who characterizes them as nations
trading in copper (Ezek. 27 13); a metal which, it is notorious, abounds in the
soil of Siberia; a region which included all the northern part of Asia, which
borders on Russia to the west, on the Ice-sea to the north, on the Eastern
Ocean to the east, and on Great Tartary to the south. And thus the three
denominations Rosh, Meshekh, and Thuval, united in the prophecy, point out,
with equal capacity and conciseness, those widely extended regions which at the
present day, we denominate collectively THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE.
Gog is styled the “ Prince
of Rosh, Meshekh, and Thuval “, that is Autocrat of the Russians, Muscovites,
and Siberians, or of” All the Russias “. But he is also styled “ Gog of the
land of Magog” as well. There must be something significant in this. it affirms
that he is sovereign of Magog as well as prince of all the Russias for there in
the latter days is his proper dominion. “ Whoever reads Ezekiel” says Michaelis, “ can hardly entertain a doubt
that Gog is the name of a sovereign, and Magog that of his people ; the prophet
speaks of the former, not as a people, but as an Emperor “. Let us then now inquire
where is the region styled Magog; that we may be
Pg 82
able to ascertain of what
people besides the Russians, Gog will be the imperial michrnar or
sentinel. And as Gomer is represented by Ezekiel as a constituent of his
confederacy, we will also endeavour to establish what people among the moderns
will answer to the name.
From the Hebrew Scriptures
we learn that Magog and Gomer were the names of two of the Sons of Japheth; and
it is to ancient Hebrew authority alone that we can resort to ascertain where,
according to the common repute of the Israelites, the nations which descended
from these two heads of families, and which long retained the proper names of
those heads, were spread and established. Josephus says, “ that Japheth, the
son of Noah, had seven Sons ; who proceeding from their primitive seats in the
mountains of Taurus and Amanus, ascended Asia to the river Tanais (or Don); and
then entering Europe penetrated as far westward as the Straits of Gibraltar,
occupying the lands which they successively met with in their progress ; all of
which were uninhabited; and bequeathed their names to their different families
or nations. That Gomer founded the Gomari, whom the Greeks at that time called GaIata
and that Magog founded the Magogae, whom the Greeks then called Scytha “.
It only therefore remains for us to ascertain, which were the nations that the
Greeks in the time of Josephus called Scythae, and which they then
styled Galata and to observe whether the geographical affinities of these nations
are such as answer to those which are plainly required by the prophecy for
Magog and Gomer.
Herodotus, the most
ancient Greek writer accessible, acquaints us that “ the name Scythae was a
name given by the Greeks to an ancient and widely-extended people of Europe,
who had spread themselves from the river Tanais, or Don, westward along the
banks of the Ister or Danube “. “The Greeks “, observes Major Rennel, “appear to have first used the term
Scythia in its application to their neighbours the Scythians of the Euxine, who
were also called Geta,or Gothi,~ and were those who afterward
subdued the Roman empire: and from which original stock the present race of
people in Europe seem to be descended.” And again : “ The Scythians of
Herodotus appear to have extended themselves in length from Hungary,
Transylvania, and Wallachia, on the wsestward, to the river Don on the eastward
“. Thus the testimony of Herodotus and Josephus is in perfect agreement
concerning the progress of Magog and Gomer. In these same regions the Scythae
continued many ages after Herodotus, and even long after the time of Josephus;
for Dio Cassius, who live 150 years
after Josephus, and about 200 after Christ, relates that Pompey in his return
into Europe from Asia, “ determined to pass to the Ister, or Danube, through
the Scythae, and so to enter Italy “. These were the original Scythae. But
Herodotus states further, that a portion of the same people in an after age,
turned back upon the European seats of their fathers, and established
themselves in Asia; and from these sprung the Asiatic Scythae, who in process
of time almost engrossed the name to themselves.
Since the name of Scythie,
or Magog, is to be considered not by itself, but in geographical connection
with Ga1atae, or Gomer, we have
Pg 83
only to inquire, whether
any geographical affinity is really ascribed by the Greeks to the Scythae and
Galatae? and to ascertain to what regions of the earth those names so
associated were applied. If we can discover these two points, we ought thereby
to have discovered specifically the Magog of the prophecy, which is to be
associated with the region, or people of Gomer.
Diodorus Siculus, who
lived about a century before Josephus, traces them much further into Europe
than the Danube; .even to the shores of the Baltic, and to the very confines of
the Galatae of the Greeks. In speaking of the amber found upon the shores of
that sea, he there places the region expressly denominated, “ Scythia above or
north of Galatia “. In which description we at length find the Scythae or
Magogae, in the immediate neighbourhood of the Galatie of the Greeks, or Gomer.
GALATIA is the common and
familiar name used by all the earlier Greek historians for Gaul, the
Gallia of the Latins ; and Galatre is the common Greek name for Gauls, or the Galli
of the Latins. Thus Strabo says, “all the Galatae were called Celtre by the
Greeks” ; and it is equally true that “ the Celte were called Galane by the
Greeks, and Galli by the Latins “. To inquire who were the Galatae of the
Greeks “ is therefore the same as to inquire who were the Galli of the Romans.
A colony of these Galatae or Galli in the third century before Christ,
emigrated from Gaul and established themselves in Asia Minor; where they were
ever after called by their Greek name, Galatians. Diodorus “Scythia
above Gaul extending towards the Baltic “, accurately describes that large
tract of Europe above the Rhine, or northern boundary of Gaul, through which
flow the rivers Elbe, Ems, and Weser. Here, and in the countries immediately
adjoining, were the SCYTHAE, bordering upon the GALATAE on the north; that is
to say, a considerable part of MAGOG geographically associated with Gomer.*
Diodorus elsewhere describes the northern part of Galatia, or Gaul, as
confining upon Scythia. The Greeks “, says he, “call those who inhabit
Marseilles and the inland territory, and all those who dwelt towards the Alps
and Pyrenean mountains, by the name of Celts; but those who occupy the country
lying to the northward, between the Ocean and the 1-lyrcynian mountain, and all
others as far as Scythia, they denominate Galatae but the Romans call all those
nations by one collective appellation, Galate that is, Galli.” These
geographical affinities unite in the name of CeltoScytha, mentioned by Strabo.
“The ancient Greeks “, says he, “at first called the northern nations by the
general name of Scythians; but ‘alien they became acquainted with the nations
in the west, they began to call them by the different names of Celts, and
Celto-Scythae”; and again, “ the ancient Greek historians called the northern
nations collectively Scythians and Celto Scythar” ; which latter name plainly
adjoining Gaul; of the number of whom were th denoted the most western portion
of the Scythae “Scythar on the north of the Galatae “.
---------------------------------------------
* Gomer from whom
proceeded the Galatae, that is, the Gauls.-Isidor Origin. Lib.ix He wrote about AD 400
pg 84
In this general
description may be easily discerned that extended portion of the West of
Europe, comprehending ancient Gaul, Belgium, and the countries bordering upon
them, which constituted in our day the Napoleonic empire. Gomer, then, points
immediately to France.
Scythia above Gaul “, or
Magog above Gomer, that is, to the north of it, through which flows the Ems,
Elbe, and Weser, is the country from which proceeded principally that renowned
people who in the early ages of Romanism formed an extensive confederacy with
their kindred nations upon the Rhine, which had migrated successively thither
from the regions of the Danube; and who under the common denomination of FRANKS
overran Gaul, and subdued it; and finally establishing their power and
population in the conquered country, permanently superseded the name of Gaul by
that of FRANCE. “As for the seats of the Franks “, says the Universal History,
“ it appears from their constant incursions into Gaul, that they dwelt on the
banks of the Rhine in the neighborhood of Mentz “. All historians speak of them
as placed there till their settling in Gaul. Their country, according to the
best modern geographers and historians, was bounded on the north by the Ocean
and the Rhine; on the south by the Maine; and on the east by the Weser.
These were therefore the
Celto-Scythians, or Scythians on the northern confine of Gaul; that is, Magog
in contiguity with Gomer. The Chaldean interpreter applies the name of Magog to
the Germans; in short, all the ancients looked for the Magog of scripture in
the West. The Scythae of Asia, who as we have seen were only a partial emigration,
or reflux, from their ancient stock in Europe, cannot, with any soundness of
criticism, be taken account of in this argument.
From the evidence, then,
now before the reader,* the proposition may be considered as fairly proved,
that Daniels” king of the north” is the same power as Ezekiels”
Gog”; and that Gog being the Russian Power in full manifestation, the
king of the north and the Russian Power are identical. This position being
established, we can now look around us, and far before us into the future, and
be prepared to point out assuredly what will be the general progress and issue
of the present
EASTERN QUESTION.
* This evidence has been
extracted from the historical and geographical gleanings of a writer on the
Prophecy of Ezekiel, published over fifty years ago, who maintained that the
Little Horn of Daniels Fourth Beast symbolizes Napoleon the Firsts
empire; that his wars and dominancy over the nations of Europe were the” making
war, prevailing over, and wearing out” of the Saints; that the breaking of
Daniels Little Horn in Palestine is a fond vision ba.sed on a
misapprehension; that the Jewish nation is not to be restored to its own land;
that the doctrine of the Millennium is unscriptural; that Gogue was a cloud to
cover the land of” Ros, Meshech, arid Tobi “, or of “All the Russias”; that
“the Mountains of Israel” denote the pale of the Universal Church of Messiah,
coextensive with “Christendom” so-called; that Napoleon I was “the Mouth
speaking great things” that he was the Antichrist, the last Tyrant of the
Church ; and that his overthrow us Russia was the fall of Gog, or Antichrist,
upon the Mountains of Israel! Such is the mountain of chaff from which I have
sifted some historical and geographical wheat which I have presented to prove
conclusions the very reverse of his. Napoleon was neither the Antichrist, the
Little Horn, nor Gog; but a splendid type of Christ in his character of
destroyer of the Beast and False Prophet, and the conqueror of the kings of the
earth.
Daniel says of him in
general terms, “ He shall enter into the countries, and shall overwhelm and
pass over”—and “many (ravboth, referring to eretzoth, countries,
understood) shall fall “ ; that is, from weakness, as the word implies—the
worn-out condition of the powers facilitating his progress. Ezekiel tells us
that these countries are those of Magog, Gomer, Persia, Ethiopia, Libya, and
Togarmah, with their hosts; in addition to Rosh, Meshekh, and Thuval. He says
that the King of the North, or Gog, is to be for mishmar, a guard,
sentinel, shepherd, or supervisor, over all these (Ezek. 38 : 7). It is not to
be supposed that he will be the sole emperor, or crowned head. The position
marked out for him is that of a King of kings, and a Lord of lords, as was his
predecessor, Nebuchadnezzar, the post-Nimroudian founder of the Kingdom of
Babylon. It is probable that the House of Hapsburg will continue imperial; nay,
I would say more than probable. The Autocrats supervisorship of the
Kingdom of Babylon is not at all incompatible with the Western Imperiality of
Austria. Alexander in Constantinople, and Francis Joseph in Vienna, with the
priority assigned to the former, would only be a resuscitation of an old form
of the catholic Kingdom of the Fourth Beast, as when Arcadius and Honorius
amicably divided, or rather agreed to sustain, the Majesty of the Two-Legged
Iron and Brass dominion upon their united shoulders. According to this
arrangement there will then exist a Dragon, a Beast with Two Horns like the
horns of a Lamb, and the Ten Horus, exercising all the power now exetcised by
the thrones, principalities, and powers, in the countries named by Ezekiel, and
represented by the Diademed Ten -Horned symbol.
The Autocrat, then, as
chief emperor, will become in the progress of events “Lord of the Ascendant “,
even the Agag* of the East and \Vest; shining forth from his lofty throne as
Lucifer, son of the morning, over the nations weakened by the gratification of
his insatiable ambition. If he have not yet said it, the time is coming when he
will “think an evil thought” (Ezek. 38 : 10), and say in his heart, as it is
revealed of him, “ I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the
stars of God: I will sit also upon the Mount of the
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the MS. from which the
seventy Jews in the days of Ptolemy Philadelphus translated Num. 24: 7, Agag
seems to have read Gog. Their rendering is, “A man shall come Out of
the seed of (Jacob), and he shall rule many nations; the kingdom shall be
exalted above Gog, and his kingdom shall be increased “. “The Samaritan text,
the Greek text of Svmmachus, and also the old Italic version quoted by Cyprian,
read the same ; and we are told that the same reading is preserved in the
Selavonian, Russian, and Armenian versions.”
Pg 86
Congregation (Zion) in the
sides of the north : I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will
be like the Most High “ (Isa. 14:: 13, 14). He who made man, and knows
thoroughly the vanity and presumption of the human heart, has spoken thus of
Belshazzar the type of the last occupant of the throne of the Kingdom of
Babylon. A man of such a soul as this is not upright, and therefore unfit to
rule the world for God ; for “ He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in
the fear of Yahweh “ (2 Sam. 23 :3). His dominions duration must
therefore of necessity be brief. But ‘a hile it lasts, he will prose himself to
be “ a proud man, who enlargeth his desire as the grave, and as death, and
cannot be satisfied, but gathereth unto himself all nations, and heapeth unto
him all peoples, . . . lading himself with thick clqy” (Hab. 2 : 4 6).
By turning to a map of
Europe and Asia, the reader may trace out the territory of the Kingdom of
Babylon as it is destined to exist in its last form under the King of the North
in his Gogian manifestation. The names of countries furnished by Ezekiel will
lead him to a just conception of its general extent. Besides “All the Russias
“, it will take in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, France, Spain,
Portugal, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Prussia, Austria, Turkey, Persia,
Tartary, Greece, the Roman Africa, and Egypt. This will be a dominion of great
magnitude, extending from the North Sea to the Wall of China and Afghanistan,
and from the Ice-Sea to the Deserts of Africa and Arabia.
AUTOCRAT’S
DOMINION
The organization which
this vast empire will assume, when fully developed, is represented in the
second chapter of Daniel by a Colossus in human form, which as an apparition
flitted before the mind of Nebuchadnezzar in a dream. Daniel says that the
scene of which it was the subject, was representative of what should be “ in
the Latter Days “. This being admitted, it follows that what is recorded in
that chapter is yet in the future. The scene exhibits a Colossus standing on
its feet in unrivalled brightness of glory, and terrible to behold. Standing
thus for a time not indicated, another object appears, even A STONE
representative of a Power not in mortal hands. The Stone-Power smites the Colossus
on the Feet, and it falls ; after which the Stone proceeds to reduce the broken
fragments to dust ‘which by the violence of the process is carried away
so completely that not a vestige of the Colossus remains ; and the place left
void by the disappearance of the statue becomes the territory of the Stone
power, which by the operation becomes a Mountain dominion, and fills the whole
Image earth.
This scene has never been
exhibited before the eyes of the world, because the constituents of the
Colossus have never yet been put together so as to form the Image of the
scene. These constituents arc represented by the different metallic parts, as
the Chaldieo-Assyrian golden head ; the Medo Persic-Assyrian sits er arms and
breast ; the Macedo Assyrian belly of brass ; the Greco-Assyrian
and Greaco
Egyptian, northern and
southern thighs of brass; the Latino Assyrian and the Greco-Assyrian eastern
and western iron legs; and the Russo-Greek Assyrian and Latino Assyrian iron
and clay feet and toes. Now, while the head, breast and arms, belly, thighs,
legs and toes, have all existed, the Feet have not yet been formed; so that it
has been hitherto impossible for the Colossal Image to stand erect, as
Nebuchadnezzar saw it in his dream. It is, therefore, the mission of the
Autocrat to form the feet and set up the image before the world in all its
excellent brightness, and terribleness of form; that all men subject to the
Kingdom of Babylon may worship the work of its creators power.
When it stands upon the
Plain of Dura the imperial fabric will rest upon the Russo-Greek and Latin Feet
and Toes—two emperors and ten kings on the Roman earth, whatever may be beyond.
The form of the image necessitates the reduction of the present number of European
emperors from four to two.* There are but two Legs, therefore there can be only
two imperial divisions of the dominion in its latter-day, or time-of the-end
manifestation. From mature consideration I am satisfied that Austria and Russia
will be the imperial supporters of the united majesty of the Image; for there
must be Ten Kingdoms, and if Austria were suppressed, and France remain
imperial, the tenth kingdom would be wanting; besides that prophecy has already
designated France as a Gomerian constituent of the Image, and as a tenth of
the city” or State. of Babylon (Rev.
11 : 13). From these premises my inference is, that the present
Napoleon-empire is simply meteoric. Providence has raised it up as the
Frog-Power dominion (Rev. i6 : 13) to work out by its policy an antagonist
Russo Austrian policy leading to the manifestation of the Image, preparatory to
the overthrow of the Kingdom of Babylon by the Stone-Power, or Kingdom of God.
Had the French empire not been resuscitated, events would have flowed in a
different channel, and the gathering of the nations to the Armageddon-conflict,
humanly speaking, evaded. State documents prove that the policy of Louis
Napoleon has been the exciting cause of the Eastern Question; and it will be
the cause (if still further complications. But beyond a certain limit he cannot
go. He has a mission to perform, and when it is accomplished his work is done.
He will not be allowed to settle himself in the throne of a French empire. The
age of conquest, he says, is gone, never more to return; and this was most
complacently re-echoed by the admirers of Louis Napoleon in England. But, how
little do the puppets, through whom Providence works out his purposes,
understand the times and tendencies to which they belong ! They propose, but
the disposition of all things is of God. There is to be no more fighting for
conquest or aggrandizement or selfish advantage between France and England,
says Lord Palmerston; but for the liberties of oppressed nations, and to
establish the freedom and independence of Europe; and, continues he, “I am
confident it will be crowned with success “. There may, indeed, be no more
fighting between France and England, as belligerent principals : but their
leaders are all wrong in supposing
* The four now
existing (in 1868) are the Russian, the Austrian, the Ottoman, and the French.
Pg 88
that “the age of conquest
is past for ever “, and that they will succeed in establishing the freedom and
independence of Europe. There never has been such an age of conquest as that
which will soon open upon the world; and as to the establishment of European
freedom and independence, the war to be initiated is the setting in of an overwhelming
inundation that will submerge them under one of the most terrible and scorching
despotisms that ever wrung the heart of nations. Englands ally, in whom
she now glories, and by whose aid she proposes to do such great things for
Europe, will eventually prove but a broken teed. The French empire must fall,
and Napoleon perhaps give place to a nominee of his “ good friend” the
Autocrat; for before the end comes the French Monarchy may be expected to
reappear, and then, unless Britain can form some alliance beyond the limits of
the Kingdom of Babylon, she will have to fight the battle of freedom and
independence alone, and at the price of her own existence if she fail. France,
as I have said, is Gomerian; and as such must come into confederacy with the
great Cossack Ruler of the Gogian Image; and then, though not as a principal,
she will send her conquered and crestfallen hosts to do battle for the
Autocrat against Britain on the mountains of Israels land.
It is impossible that
Nebuchadnezzars image can represent any other imperial confederacy of
nations than that under the King of the North in the time of the end. The names
given in Ezekiels list of Gogs army, are repres ntative of the
countries known to have existed under the dynastic rule of the gold, the
silver, the brass and the iron. Part of Assyria proper already belongs to the
King of the North, and pertains to the gold; Persia is to be with him as the
silver element; his Grecism is typified by the brass ; and his Gomerians by the
iron while his Magogians, Roshi. Muscovites, and Siberians, with the central
Asiatic Tartars of Togarmahs house, are the clay, which he commingles
with the iron to form the Feet as the connecting medium between the Legs and
Toes. Besides, no two such empires as that of the Image arid the Northern Gog
could coexist in the latter days there would be neither population nor space
for them in the Kingdom of Babylon. As then
the time and place of their existence are the same, they must, therefore, be
one and the same confederate power, the image being symbolical or
representative ot the Gogian dominion of the King of the North, or Autocrat of
Russia.
These territories are not
included in the Gogian empire. They are situated in the south and south-east of
the Holy Land, and will fall under the dominion of another power, hostile to
the King of the North. It is probable that the power holding these countries
will for a time possess Egypt, but in the course of the war lose it, for “ the
land of Egypt shall not escape” the King of the North, which implies its
independence of him to a certain time.
89
In the thirty-ninth verse
of the eleventh chapter of Daniel, the phrase adamah yecha/lek bimchir, is
rendered by Moses Stuart, “land will he distribute as a reward “, and affirms
it of Antiochus. But a general distribution of land to favourites is no special
characteristic, but common to all powers. It is evidently some particular land
or country the Little Horn is to treat as expressed by the words. The land is
without doubt that which was to be trodden under foot by the Little Horn of the
Goat abomination until the end—the Holy Land.
Now, though the words are
susceptible of the rendering he has given, the testimonies of other prophets
satisfy me that it is not the proper rendering in this place. I rather incline
to the words, “ he shall divide the country for a price “, as foretelling a
bargain and sale between the Little Horn and another power of a portion of the
territory now in its possession. Yahweh addressing Israel upon the subject of
their restoration, says by Isaiah, “ I gave Egypt for thy ransom” (Isa. 43 :
3). Egypt acknowledges the suzerainty of the Porte, and is so situated that a
tract including Edom, Moab, and the chief of the territory of the sons of
Ammon could be easily commanded from thence by a naval power; so that while the
King of the North is making great progress elsewhere, an adversary is securing
a maritime section of Ottomania for itself.
Besides the passage in
Isaiah, there is a testimony strikingly to the point in Joel (Joel 3-2).
Speaking of the time when Yahweh will gather the armies of all nations into the
valley of Jehoshaphat, on the east of the Holy City—which encampment there is
the same as the King of the Norths, “ between the seas to the mountain,
the glory of the holy “—the prophet says that they will be gathered there for a
great overthrow because they have scattered Israel, and divided Yahwehs land. The words are in the
English version, ‘ parted my land “ ; “ parted” being the same svord in the
Hebrew as “ divide” in Dan. 11:39
In Joel the word for ‘ land “ is érétz, but in Daniel adämäh. Now,
though both words are applied to the Holy Land and other countries, I take it
that adänäh in relation to the Little Horn of the Goat, has
reference to more country than that of the Holy; while éritz~ in Joel
refers exclusively to Yahwehs land, which will suffer division or
partition as a part of the ádâmdh or country bargained for between the
Constantinopolitan and his wealthy customer. The partition of countries in
general by” the powers that be “is no offence against the Deity, because,
although the earth is His and the fulness thereof, yet He does not lay claim to
them in that special sense in which He does to Palestine. He has .published to
the world, “ the Land is mine, and shall not be alienated” (Lev. 25 : 23); and
because it is His, and all pertaining to it, therefore it is all holy—the
land, the cities, the metropolis, and the nation. In relation to the Gentiles,
they are under an interdict. They are forbidden to appropriate them, or to
oppress and spoil them, under penalty of Yahwehs wrath and terrible
indignation. Poland may be divided, and Lombardy and Hungary ‘plucked up by the
roots” with impunity, because they are the lands of Israels enemies,
the worshippers of the Beast that has made war upon the Saints and overcome
them; but woe be to the
pg 90
peoples that divide the
Holy, and burden themselves with Jerusalem, the glory of the Holy “. Hear what
Yahweh proclaims in regard to this subject : “ Behold, I will make Jerusalem a
cup trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege
both against Judah and Jerusalem. nd in
that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people ; all that
burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the
earth be gathered together against it “ (Zech.
iz : 2-3).
The country then divided
off by the Constantinopolitan will include the south and south-east of the Holy
Land, comprehending Edom, Moab, and the principal part of Ammon. I do not say
that this will he all that will be purchased of the Constantinopolitan. I
rather expect that all Palestine (which, however, does not comprehend in the
modern use of that name all the Holy Land) may be included in the purchase; but
what I mean is, that when the seat of war is transferred to the Holy Land, that
portion of the purchase anciently styled Edom, Moab, and Ammon, in major part
will be exempted from the fate of Egypt ; and therefore form an asylum for
refugees from the northern parts of the country. It will be the section
preserved from conquest by the power of the purchaser at the time of the King
of the Norths overthrow by Michael, the great Prince Royal of Israel.
The power that comes into
possession of” Tyre and Sidon, and all the coast of Palestine “ (Joel 3 : 4),
with Edom, Moab, Ammon, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Seba, is the great Latter-Dqy
antagonist of Gog, whose dominion attains to the full after the rushing
forth of the King of the North like a tempest against the Ottoman element of
the Little Horn of the Goat; and because it possesses these countries in “ the
time of the end “, it is the Tyre, or Daughter of Tyre, the Edom, the Moab, and
so forth, of the latter days ; so that the prophecies treating of those lands
at the time, are really delivered concerning that power; for the prophets speak
not so much of races and individual potentates, as of powers
on the territories named from the ancient founders of states upon them.
Let us take Moab as an
illustration. Moab has evidently a latter-day history, from the notice taken of
her in Daniel ; and from the saying, “ I will bring again the captivity of Moab
in the latter days, saith Yahweh “ (Jer. 48 : 47). We are not, however, to
expect that the real descendants of Lot will return there ; for their race is
melted down and lost among the nations; but that the country called Moab, now a
desolate portion of the Constantinopolitan, or Dragon empire, will be occupied
by a power that shall restore prosperity to the country precious to its coming
into the possession of the occupant of
Davids throne,who
will make her the washbowl (Psa. io8 : 9) of his kingdom.
When the northern Gog ins
ades the Holy Land and advances against Jerusalem, there will of course be
great alarm among the Jewish inhabitants of the country, whose especial enemy
he is. As the power that overshadows them with its protection is compelled to
fall back on Edom, Moab, and Ammon, where it will maintain its position, they
will retire with it as ‘‘ outcasts “ from its northern section, which will
then be in the hand of Gog the “ spoiler “, the “ ex-
Pg 91
tortioner “, and the “
oppressor “ of Judah. Now in view of this situation of affairs, the Spirit of
God has oracularized the following address to this Moabitish power, saying, “
Take counsel, execute judgment; make thy shadow as the night in the midst of
the noonday; hide the outcasts, betray not him that wandereth. Let mine
outcasts dwell with thee, Moab; be thou a covert to them from the face of the
spoiler “. From this it is evident that in the time of the end the power
occupying Moab is antagonistic to the spoiler, and the protector of Yahwehs
outcasts ; which a Moabitish power has never been before. The protection will
certainly be accorded until the Deliverer come to Zion. If the power understood
the oracle, its energy of resistance would he increased by it; because the
exhortation to become the protector of the Jewish outcasts is immediately
followed! by the announcement that “ the extortioner is at an end, the spoiler
ceaseth, and the oppressors are consumed our of the land as the result,
doubtless, of the King of the North “coming to his end with none to help him “.
The power occupying Moab, then, would not he disposed to enter into terms with
Gog and to deliver up the refugees ; but would be stirred up to make great
efforts in hope of more prosperous campaigns than heretofore; assuredly
garnering that the overthrow of the enemy was not remote.
The consumption of the
oppressors out of the Holy Land can only he coetaneous with the fall of Gog
upon the mountains of Israel by the fury of Adonai Yahweh (Ezek. 38 :18 ; 39 :
3,4); the overthrow of the king of the north by Michael (Dan. 8 : 25; 11: 45;
12:1) ; the smiting of the image on the feet by the stone; the consumption of
Pauls Man of Sin ; and the beating down of the Assyrian by the voice of
Yahweh (Isa. 30 : 30, 31). They are all one and the same event happening to the
same power—the treading of the wine-press in the day of vengeance, when the
hero of Bozrah tramples the people in his anger, and makes them drunk in his
fury, and brings down their strength to the earth (Isa. 63 : 4, 6).
But when it shall be said,
the treaders down are consumed out of the Holy Land, what order of things will
obtain there from that time forward ? Will the Moabitish protector of Judah
advance his forces and reoccupy the scene of Gogs disaster; or what other alternative will remain? The
answer is, by no means The oracle of the Deity declares, in this same prophecy
concerning Moab, that when the oppressors are consumed out of the land, “ The
throne shall be established in mercy ; and he (whose right it is) shall sit upon
it in truth in the tabernacle of David, judging and seeking judgment, and
hasting righteousness “ (Isa. 16 : 3 5). When this establishment of the kingdom
of David is perfected, Yahweh will hate accomplished to scatter the power of
the Holy People; an event which marks
the terminus of the “ time, times, and a half”, and finishes the things
revealed in Daniels book.
92
By consulting Daniel and
Ezekiel it will be found that the Gogian King of the North is excited to “great
fury “, because of the reported movement of an enemy for the purpose of thwarting
his designs. Having intimated that the King of the North will invade the Holy
Land. Daniel continues : “ But tidings out of the east and out of the north
shall trouble him ; therefore he shall go forth with great fury to destroy and
make away many “. From this statement, then, it appears that the power which
excites the fury of the King of the North has its station in the east and north
relatively to the Holy Land.
Without further
information than Daniel affords, it would be impossible to do more than guess
at the name of the power; to relieve us therefore of this uncertainty, the
Spirit has informed us by Ezekiel in what countries of the east and north the
troubling powers may be found.
After telling us that in
the latter days, Gog shall come against the mountains of Israel like a storm
cloud to cover the land, Ezekiel informs us, that this
invasion still be the
result of his conceiving a mischievous purpose, or “ thinking an evil thought
“. He then reveals to us the tenor of this evil thought which fills the heart
of the Autocrat, which is notably foreshadowed by his traditional policy. I
will go up to the land of unwalled villages “, he will say, “ to take a spoil,
and to take a prey and to turn my hand upon the reinhabited desolations, and
upon the people gathered out of the nations which have gotten cattle and goods,
that dwell in the midst of the land “. He resolves to turn spoiler,
extortioner, and oppressor of those Jews who will then have resettled “ the
tenth “ (Isa. 6 : 13) which is about to be repeopled and browsed. The Gogian
King will never abandon his policy about “ the Holy Places “. It has led to the
initiation of a policy which will not be abandoned till he obtains possession
of them, and is extinguished in the catastrophe awaiting his presumption.
His determination to
invade the Holy Land and to take forcible possession of the Holy Places then in
possession of the power that will by purchase or otherwise have obtained them
of the Constantinopolitan, still stir up its indignation greatly. Ezekiel
tells us the name of the power and the position it assumes. His words are “
Sheba and Dedan, and the merchants of Tarshish, with all the young lions
thereof, shall say unto thee, Art thou come to take a spoil ? Hast thou
gathered thy company to take a prey? to carry away silver and gold, to take
away cattle and goods, to take a great spoil ? “ Let it be noted that the power
does not say, “ Art thou gone to take a spoil ? “ but,
Art thou come to do
so ? “ If it were to say, “ Art thou gone ?”
Pg 93
it would show that the
power was beyond the limits of the Holy Land; but in saying, Art thou come? the
conclusion is, that the Lion-power of Tarshish is in actual possession of, or
at least the Protector of, the country.
These interrogatories put
in a minatory form are the tidings out of the east and north that trouble him.
They do not deter him, however, for Ezekiel relates that the invasion
nevertheless ensues; and Daniel adds, with great fury for destruction. He
rushes to meet his overthrow at the hand of Deity, who will thus demonstrate
to all nations that no power injures Israel with impunity.
Sheba is south-south east
from Judea by the Straits of Babelmandeb. It was one of the countries trading
with Tyre in ancient times in “the chief of all spices, precious stones, and
gold “ ; and is now pre-eminently connected with Tyres daughter, who
has planted her standard on its soil at Aden, the Gibraltar of the Red Sea, and
key of Egypt : besides which, she has established herself in Perim, and
extended the wing of her protection over Abyssinia, upon the opposite coast.
Victoria may therefore be said to be the Queen of Sheba, and may possibly live
(for she is young enough) to abdicate her throne, and to lay her crown and
treasures at the feet of the “greater than Solomon ‘~, who will dispose of her
and her affairs according to his will.
Dedan is another district
of Arabia to the north-east of Sheba towards the Persian Gulf, and at present
occupied by the Imam of Muscat. The men of Dedan are in the list given by
Ezekiel of the traders in the Tyrian fairs. The Dedanim carried thither the
ivory and ebony which they procured from “the many isles “, or rather coasts,
to the eastward, and “precious clothes for chariots “. Thus Sheba and Dedan are
those parts of Arabia which lay convenient to the ivory, gold, precious stones,
and spice countries of Africa and India. Dedan has yet to come into confederacy
with the Lion-Power of the east and north.
As to Tarshish, there were
two regions so called in the geography of the ancients. Jehoshaphat built ships
at Eziongeber, a port of the Red Sea, that they might sail thence to Tarshish.
Now, it will be seen by the map that they could only sail southward towards the
Strait of Babelmandeb, from which they might then steer east, or north for
India. As they did not sail by compass in those days, but coastwise, they would
creep round the coast of Arabia and so make for Hindostan. The voyage occupied
them three years. In the days of Solomon, the trade was shared between Israel
and the Tyrians ; for “ he had at sea a navy of Tarshish with the navy of
Hiram; once in three years came the navy of Tarshish, bringing gold and silver,
ivory, and apes, and peacocks “. These products point to India as the eastern
Tarshish— a country which has always conferred maritime ascendancy on the power
which has possessed its trade and been its carrier to the nations.
But there was also a
Tarshish to the north-west of Judea. This appears in the case of Jonah, who
embarked at Joppa, now Jaffa, on the Mediterranean, “to flee unto Tarshish from
the presence of Yahweh “. He could only sail towards the west. Like the eastern
Tarshish it was a country, not a city, whose “merchants” frequented
The Tyrian fairs. Addressing
Tyre, the prophet says, “ Tarshish was thy merchant by reason of the multitude
of all kinds of riches ; with silver, iron, tin, and lead, they traded in thy
fairs “. These metals are pre eminently the products of Britain, celebrated by
the Phoenicians as Baralanac, or “the land of tin “, as some interpret
it. The merchandise o the northern Tarshish and of the eastern,
identifies Britain in the north, and India in the east, with the two countries
of that name.
But corroborative of this,
I remark further that the Sheba and Tarshish power is represented as a
Merchant-power in the words, the Merchants of Tarshish shall say unto thee, 0
Gog “. Having ascertained the geography of Tarshish, it is easy to answer the
question, Who are signified by its merchants ‘ This inquiry will admit of but
one answer, namely, The British East India Merchants, or commercial power,
which is both the merchant and ruler of the elephant tooth country of the east.
But the association of “ the young lions of Tarshish “ with the “ merchants of
Tarshish “, makes this still more obvious ; for it represents the original
constitution of the Anglo-Indian government. It is well known that this
government was a sovereignty of a mixed character, being neither purely
merchant nor purely imperial. The Anglo-Canadian is purely imperial, no company
of merchants having any share in its direction. But the Anglo Indian government
was constituted differently, the power having been founded by a chartered
company of traders, and the British government afterwards admitted to a
controlling influence in its Indian management. Now the imperial constituent of
the power is represented by “ young lions “ ; that is, the Lion is the symbol
of the British power, which is therefore the old lion ,” while those who
administer the power are the young lions. The lion power was formerly
represented in the Anglo Indian government by “the Board of Control”, and the
imperial forces which served with the Companys troops in the Indian
army. The original constitution of British India has of late years been
modified by the Parliament of England. The Company retains the control of its
vested interests in the country while the political and military direction is
ordered by the government of the Queen, whose title is the Empress of India.
The merchants of Tarshish governed India under control of the Lion power a constitution
of things well represented on the Company’s shield of arms, whose quarterings
are filled with young lions rampant, with a motto inscribed ‘ Auspecia Senat:ic
Anglus “. From the data, then, it may he faith concluded, that the combined
British and Indo merchant power is the posver of the latter days, raised up of
the Deity to antagonize the Russian power, so as by its policy and
resistance to shape its course into the Valley of Decision, when, basing
confederated all Europe as its “ guard “, its insatiable ambition shall prompt
it to seize upon Jerusalem and to grasp at the sceptre of the east.
But the Lion power of
Britain has not yet attained the full extent marked out for it by the finger of
God. The annexation of Persia arid Khush, or Khushistan, to the Gogian empire,
will doubtless cause England to strengthen herself in Afghanistan and Dedan,
Pg 95
by treaty or otherwise,
that she may command the entrance to the Persian Gulf, so as to prevent the
King of the North from carrying war into the heart of India by land or sea.
Possessing Persia and Mesopotamia, the apprehension of the dominion extending
still further southward, perhaps to the very shores of the Red Sea, and so
outflanking her by the Straits of Babelmandeb, will also be a powerful motive
for the merchants of Tarshish and its young lions to take maritime possession
of the Gulf of Persia, the Straits, and the Red Sea to Suez.
From the evidence, then,
now before the reader, it is clear that the Tarshish antagonist to Gog is the
British power, from which proceed the tidings that trouble the King of the
North. At that time the Old World will be divided into two great adverse
confederacies, of which Russia and Britain will be the powers in chief; the
former having the lordship of the earth defined,* and the latter of the sea and
its coast to a great extent. The British empire, not to mention its provinces
which have no bearing upon the Gogian dominion, will then, as the “land
shadowing wide with wings “, comprise the Indian Tarshish, the Muscat-Dedan,
the Aden Sheba, Edom, Moab, Ammon, Abyssinia, Nubia, Egypt, and Palestine; and
perhaps all the islands of the Mediterranean, which will then vindicate its
claim to its ancient name in the geography of Israel, “ The Sea of Tarshish “.
The premises now before us
also establish the position, that as Nebuchadnezzars Image is
representative of the Gogian empire in full manifestation, it is impossible in
the nature of things that Britain can be one of the Ten Toes; and as the Toes
of the Image represent the same powers as the Ten Horns of the Fourth Beast,
and of the Dragon and Ten-horned apocalyptic Beasts, neither can she be
included among the powers prefigured by those symbols.
It is important to the
understanding of the prophecy that we should know the time referred to
by the phrase. To ascertain this is easy. It may be known whether they are past
or future by a certain event which is to transpire in the time they indicate.
The event is predicted by Hosea in these words : “ The children of Israel shall
*see pg 81
pg 96
abide many days without a
king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, . . . afterwards shall the
children of Israel return, and seek Yahweh their God, and David their king; and
shall fear Yahweh and his goodness in the latter days “. Here is
a long period indicated, termed “ many days “, during which the
Israelites were to be without king, prince, or sacrifice. It is evident that
that period is not yet ended, because they are still without those elements of
their polity. The latter days cannot therefore be in the past; for the prophet
says, “ afterward” they shall return and seek David and Yahweh in
the latter days. The latter days, then, are after the ending of the many days,
and consequently still in the future.
The latter days are the
latter years or “ the time of the end and will be the most remarkable of any in
the history of our postdiluvian world. They are denominated in Daniel, “a time
of trouble such as never was since there was a nation to that same time “. This
is conceivable when we come to understand what the scriptures testify is then
to he accomplished. The Empire symbolized by the political Image is to be
broken to pieces, and the fragments ground to powder in the latter days ; Gog
is to come against the mountains of Israel in the latter days ; the twelve
tribes are to return to the Holy Land in the latter days ; the Star that has
arisen out of Jacob, and the sceptre out of Israel, “ shall smite the princes
of Moab, and destroy all the children of Sheth ; and Israel shall do valiantly”
in the latter days (Num. 24: 14-19); “a whirlwind of Yahweh goes forth in fury,
even a grievous whirlwind; it shall fall grievously on the head of the wicked.
The anger of Yahweh shall not return, until he have executed, and have
performed the thoughts of his heart; in the latter days, 0 Israel, ye shall
consider it perfectly “ (Jer. 23 : 19, 20; 30 : 19 24). The gathering of the
peoples shall be to Shiloh in the latter days; and He shall rebuke strong
nations afar off, and deliver Israel from the Assyrian in the latter days. In
short, the latter days are “ the Hour of Judgment” in which many of the dead
are to arise, and the full measure of divine indignation shall he made manifest
against “Christendom “, which has so long triumphed over Gods righteousness
and truth.
Pg 97
history for the great
lamentation caused in Judah and Jerusalem because of the overthrow of their
forces, and death of Josiah there at the hand of the Egyptians. As this was a
notable national mourning, it is cited by Zechariah as an illustration of a
future national lamentation at the time when “all nations shall come against
Jerusalem” (Zech. 12 : 9, II), especially as they will overspread the
field of Josiahs disaster. The whole area that will be occupied by the
king of the north is represented in the Apocalypse by this celebrated section
of it; and styled ARMAGEDDON, or The Mountain, or Heap, in the Valley of
Judgment.
On this area Daniel says,
“ the King of the North shall plant the tents of his camp “. He will then be at
the head of the armies of all the nations of the Gogian confederacy gathered
against Jerusalem to battle, as Zechariah and other prophets have foretold.
Well garrisoned and defended as the Holy City no doubt will be by the
Anglo-Tarshish power and the Jews, the city will nevertheless be taken, but not
destroyed ; though great calamities will be inflicted upon the inhabitants.
Jerusalem being taken, there is reason to believe that the war will be
continued on the other side of the Jordan in that part of Ammon which does not
escape out of the hand of the King of the North. This will extend the seat of
the war to Eastern Idumea or Edom in the region of Bozrah; while South Edom,
Moab, and the major part of Ammon escape its ravages. This will be the position
of the two armies; Gogs extending from Egypt to Mount Carmel and the
sea of Tiberius northward; and from the Mediterranean to the Dead Sea; and from
Carmel across the Jordan to Bozrah eastward: while the Anglo-Tarshish forces,
cut off from the Mediterranean and their western fleet, will face the enemy in
the northern part of Ammon, their communication with the ocean being maintained
by the Red Sea.
This being the final
position of the hostile armies, the reader will see the force of Isaiahs
inquiry of the blood-stained traveler, “ Who is this that cometh from EDOM with
dyed garments from BOZRAH? this that is glorious in his apparel, advancing in
the greatness of his strength?” The army contending for the possession of
Yahwehs Land is therefore Yahwehs enemy. In holding South Edom,
the capital of which was Seir; Moab, and the major part of Ammon, etc., to
Khushistan, Anglo-Tarshish will occupy a part of the territory covenanted to
Abraham and Christ; while Gog at the same time holds the rest: to say nothing
of “ their wickedness “ which “is great “, he is, because of this invasion, and
coveted appropriation of the land, the enemy of Yahweh and his King; as it is
written, “Edom shall be a possession, Seir also shall be a possession for his
enemies “.
Edom then may be styled
the front of the Gogian armies; and therefore when Yahweh goes forth to fight
them “as when he fought in the day of battle” in old time, He strikes the first
blow at Bozrah. And a terrible blow it will be, as may be conceived from the
answer to another question by the same prophet, saying, “Wherefore art thou red
in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in the winefat?” “I
have trodden “, says the advancing Hero, “the winepress alone; and of the
people there was none with me: for I will
Pg98
tread them in my anger,
and trample them in my fury; and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my
garments, and I will stain all my raiment: for the Day of Vengeance is in my
heart, and the year of my redeemed is come. And I looked, and there was none to
help; and I wondered that there was none to uphold; therefore mine own arm
brought salvation to me; and my fury it upheld me. And I will tread down the
people in mine anger, and make them drunk in my fury, and I will bring down
their strength to the earth “ (Isa. 63: 1-6).
From this we learn that
when Isaiah sees him coming towards Jerusalem a blow had ‘been struck, and that
others remained to be inflicted; and that the Jews and their British
protectors had afforded no effective co-operation in the overthrow. But who was
this conquering Hero from a far country whose appearance is attended with such
sudden destruction? He answers the question by saying, “I that speak in
righteousness, mighty to save” : or, as it is apocalyptically expressed, “The
Faithful and True one, who in righteousness doth judge and make war: clothed
with a vesture dipped in blood, whose name is called the Word of God” (Rev. 59
: 11-13). Daniel styles him, “Michael the Great Commander, who standeth for
Judah” also “the Commander of commanders “, which is equivalent to “King of
kings, and Lord of lords “. Hosea calls him Jezreel. Ezekiel terms him Adonai
Yahweh; Isaiah, “the Name of Yahweh coming from far, burning with his anger” ;
and Paul, the Lord Jesus revealed from heaven, taking vengeance, consuming and
destroying with the brightness of his coming.
The means by which in the
absence of all co-operation his own almighty arm brings salvation are terrific.
The following testimonies will exhibit them: “Yahweh shall cause the glory of
his voice to be heard, and shall show the lighting down of his arm with the indignation
of his anger, and with the flame of a devouring fire, with scattering, and
tempest, and hailstones; for through the violence of Yahweh shall the Assyrian
be beaten down which smote with a rod. For Tophet is ordained of old; yea, for
THE KING it is prepared; He bath made it deep and large: the pile thereof is
fire, and much wood; the breath of Yahweh, like a stream of brimstone, doth
kindle it “ (Isa. 30 :30-33).
“When Yahweh shall stretch
out his hand, both he that helpeth shall fall, and he that is holpen shall fall
down, and they all shall fall together. For thus hath Yahweh spoken unto me,
Like as the lion and the young lion roaring on his prey, when a multitude of
shepherds is called forth against him, he will not be afraid of their voice,
nor abase himself for the multitude of them : so shall Yahweh Tzvaoth
come down to fight for Mount Zion and for the hill thereof. As birds flying, so
will Yahweh Tzvaoth defend Jerusalem; defending also he will deliver it ; and
passing over he will preserve it. In that day every man shall cast away his idols
of silver and of gold. Then shall the Assyrian fall with the sword, . . . and
his princes shall be afraid of THE ENSIGN, saith Yahweh, whose fire is in Zion,
and his furnace in Jerusalem “ (Isa. 31
: 3-9).
Pg 99
And again, “Come near, ye
nations, to hear; and hearken, ye people; let the earth hear, and all that is
therein; the world, and all things that come forth of it. For the indignation
of Yahweh is upon all nations, and his fury upon all their armies: he utterly
destroys them, he hath delivered them to the slaughter. Their slain also shall
be cast out, and their stench shall come up out of their carcasses, and the
mountains shall be melted with their blood. And all the host of heaven shall be
dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll: and all their
armies shall fall down, as the leaf falleth off from the vine, and as a falling
from the fig tree. For my sword shall be bathed in heaven; behold it shall come
down upon Edom, and upon the people of my curse, to judgment. The sword of
Yahweh is filled with blood, it is made fat with fatness, and with the blood of
lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams; for Yahweh hath a
sacrifice in Bozrah, and a great slaughter in the land of Edom. And the
Unicorns (one of the symbols of Britain) shall come down with them, and the
bullocks with the bulls; and their land shall be soaked with blood, and their
dust made fat with fatness. For it is the Day of Yahwehs vengeance, the
year of recompenses for the controversy of Zion” (Isa. 34 : 1-8).
Furthermore, “ I will call
for a sword against Gog throughout all my mountains, saith Adonai Yahweh: every
mans sword shall be against his brother. And I will plead against him
with pestilence and with blood; and I will rain upon him, and upon his bands,
and upon the many people that are with him, an overflowing rain, and great
hailstones, fire, and brimstone. Speak unto every feathered fowl, and to every
beast of the field, saying, Assemble yourselves, and come; gather yourselves on
every side to my sacrifice that I do slaughter for you, a great sacrifice upon
the mountains of Israel, that ye may eat flesh, and drink blood. Ye shall eat
the flesh of the mighty, and drink the blood of the princes of the earth; and
ye shall eat fat till ye be full, and drink blood till ye be drunken, of my
sacrifice which I have slaughtered for you. Thus shall ye be filled at my table
with horses and charioteers, with mighty men, and with all men of war, saith
the Lord God. And I will set my glory among the nations, and all the nations
shall see my judgment that I have executed, and my hand that I have laid upon
them. So the house of Israel shall know that I am Yahweh their Elohim from that
day and forward. And the nations shall know that the house of Israel went into
captivity for their iniquity; because they trespassed against me, therefore 1
hid my face from them, and gave them into the hands of their enemies; so fell
they all by the sword “ (Ezek. 38 : 21, 22 ; 39 : 17-23).
“In the valley of
Jehoshaphat will I sit to judge all the nations round about” (Joel 3 : 12):
“and I will execute vengeance in anger and fury upon them, such as they have
not heard” (Micah 5 : 15).
In that day, saith Yahweh,
I will smite every horse with consternation, and his rider with madness “
(Zech. 52 : 4). “ Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their
feet. and their eyes shall consume away in their orbits, and their tongue shall
consume away in their mouth. And a great tumult from Jehovah shall be among
them;
Pg 100
and they shall lay hold
every one on the hand of his neighbour, and his hand shall rise up against the
hand of his neighbour” (Zech 14:12)
Thus will the Image be
smitten, the Little Horn of the Goat broken without help, and the King of the
North come to his end with none to help him—a catastrophe in which the struggle
ere long to begin among the nations of the Old World will be sure to end.
“At that time thy people,
Daniel, shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.”
The name Israel deserves
our attention briefly in speaking of their deliverance. Israel signifies a
Prince of God. It was the name conferred on the grandson of Abraham, who
was called Jacob, or supplanter by his parents, in allusion to his
posterity, who, though the descendants of the younger brother, should have the
lordship over Edom, the country of Esau the elder.
When this new and
divinely-bestowed name was confirmed to Jacob at Bethel, in the Holy Land, the
messenger of the God of Abraham said to him; “Thy name is Jacob; thy name shall
not be called any more Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name: and he
called his name Israel. And Elohim said unto him, A nation and a company of
nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins; and the land
which I gave Abraham and Isaac, to thee
will I give it, and to thy Seed after thee will I give the land” (Gen. 35:
10-12). Jacob, now called Israel, as Abraham and Isaac had before him, died
without realizing any of these promised blessings; nevertheless in the terminus
of his mortal career he still looked for the enjoyment of them. An Israelitish
Royalty in the land of Canaan, when it should be in his own possession and in
that of his Seed, had been promised him of Elohim; and he believed it with full
assurance of hope, “ being fully persuaded that what he had promised, he was
able also to perform “. The Un-propitious circumstances by which he was
surrounded in the Egyptian province of Goshen did not dim the brightness of his
expectation for a moment. On his dying-bed, by his twelve sons surrounded, he
directed their attention to the events that should happen to their posterity at
a period far remote, “in the uttermost part of the days “, the prophetic
formula for the latter days. He predicted that Levi
s posterity should
be “divided in Jacob, and scattered in Israel “, because “in their anger they
slew a man” (that is, Messiah). But in Judah he saw” the Seed” who
should as king of the nation rule the land; therefore he said, “Judah, thou art
he whom thy brethren shall praise: thy hand shall be in the neck of thine
enemies; thy fathers children shall bow down before thee. Judah is a
lions whelp: from the prey, my son, thou art gone up: he stooped down,
he couched as a lion, and as an old lion; who shall rouse him up? The sceptre
shall not depart from Judah, nor a Lawgiver from between his feet, for that
Shiloh shall come, and to him (the Lawgiver) the peoples shall gather. Binding
his foal unto the vine, and his asss colt unto the choice vine; he
washed his garments in wine, and his clothes in the blood of grapes:
pg 101
his eyes (fountains) shall
be red with wine, and his teeth (rocks) white with milk “.
But while he saw the
Royalty in conquering Judah, he beheld in the life of his son Joseph a striking
illustration of him who should be the strength and glory of their nation; for
as Joseph was sold by his brethren, and a long time separate from them, such
also should be the fate of him upon whose head the crown of Josephs
royalty should rest, before he should obtain the kingdom in the latter days. As
Jacob predicted, “the archers have sorely grieved, shot at, and hated the
posterity of Joseph “, yet” his bow abides in strength “, though long unstrung:
but when the King of the North shall be broken, “the arms of Josephs
hands shall be made strong by the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob; proceeding
forth from whom is the Shepherd, the Stone of Israel”; and therefore Son of God
as well as Judahs son.
The name Israel by
inheritance has descended to this Royal Nation, to which all the good things,
called “the goodness of Yahweh “, foreshadowed in their law, and predicted by
their prophets, belong. “To Israel “, says Paul, “pertain the adoption, and the
glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service, and the
promises” (Rom. 9 : 4). Hence, it is manifest, that one of another nation must
become the subject of that “adoption” before he can become an heir of those
“covenants” and “promises “. He must therefore put off his Gentilism, and
become an adopted citizen of Israels Commonwealth: which places him
upon an equal footing with the most favoured of the nation.
But “they are not all
Israel who are of Israel: neither because they art. the seed of Abraham, are
they all children “. The natural descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
numerous as the sand of the sea, who have gone down to the grave, are not the
Israel—the generations of the nation—that shall inhabit the Holy Land when
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, Christ, their Seed, and all in him, shall possess
it for ever. It is only “ a remnant shall be saved” of them—a remnant “who
walked in the steps of that faith of their father Abraham which he had when yet
uncircumcised “. This is also true of all Israelites according to the flesh,
living contemporary with the overthrow of the king of the north—” a remnant
will be saved”; all of them that “abide not in unbelief shall be grafted in:
for the Deity is able to graft them in again”; and only He. This latter-day
remnant will be saved, however, in a different sense from that in which the
remnant in the grave will experience salvation. These “awake for living ones of
the aiön” to possess the kingdom
and glory for ever; whereas the others continuing subject to death individually
are saved nationally from their down-trodden condition among the nations; and
established as an independent and powerful nation in the Holy Land, under the
sceptre of Jacobs Star, whose dominion shall be acknowledged throughout
the earth. Their salvation is a restoration to Canaan, and a national
regeneration to newness of intellectual, moral, civil, and religious life.
All Gentiles who believe
the good message concerning this kingdom and obey it; before” Michael the great
prince” stands up to
Pg 102
overthrow the King of the
North, by that obedience of faith become Israelites in the higher sense.
Whether dead or living, they are numbered with the remnant of the obedient “who
sleep in the dust of the earth “. Believing the promises to Israel, and
therefore being baptized, gives an Israelite, or one of another nation,
introduction into Christ; “ in whom being, they are circumcised with the
circumcision made without hands in putting off the body of the sins of the
flesh by the circumcision of Christ “ (Col 2:11. ). Such are then Israelites in
a sense in which the natural descendants of Abraham are not; still these do not
cease to be Israelites in an inferior sense, and the subjects of deliverance
from existing national degradation.
When Michael the great
prince stands up for the overthrow of Israels enemies, he finds them
and Israel shut up in unbelief—the Gentiles without faith in the kingdom; and
the Jews without faith in its king; both conditions being equally fatal to a
participation with Christ in the glory, honour, incorruptibility, and life,
which are the special attributes of the princes of regenerated Israel. He will
also find a multitude of Jews in the Holy Land as faithless in Jesus as the
generation that crucified him; for it is to make a spoil of these that Gog
invades the land (Ezek. 38 : 8). The calamities of war, however, greatly reduce
their numbers. Whatever the whole number may be, it is diminished two-thirds.
“In all the land, saith Yahweh, two parts therein shall be cut off and die; but
the third shall be left therein. And I will bring the third part through the
fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is
tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my
people: and they shall say, Yahweh is my Elohim “ (Zech 13: 8, 9).
With this third part as a nucleus
the kingdom of God begins under Michael and his associates. It is then as a
grain of mustard-seed, but destined to become a great tree whose branches shall
overshadow the earth. The third part refined are they of Israel belonging to
the tents of Judah, of whom it is written, “ Yahweh shall save the tents of
Judah first “, and then Jerusalem, as appears from the reason given, “that the
glory of the house of David, and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, do
not magnify themselves against Judah “. It is this third part that will “ look
upon him whom they have pierced, and shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for
his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness
for his firstborn “. They will find that Michael, the Deliverer, is Yahweh the
Saviour (Jesus in Greek) whom their fathers nailed to the accursed tree;
for, “one shall say unto him, What are these wounds in thine hands? Then he
shall answer, Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends “.
But, while this third part
is delivered consequent on the overthrow of the Gentile armies throughout the
land, the deliverance of the nation still remains to be effected. Having
fulfilled the prediction of Gogs destruction, by which the Holy is
avenged, Yahweh proceeds to say, “ Now will I bring again the captivity
of Jacob, and have mercy upon the whole house of Israel, and will be jealous
for my holy name “. Hence, the order of events is, first ,the avenging of the
holy
Pg 103
land in the overthrow of
the Gentile armies upon the mountains of Israel, secondly the saving of
the tents of Judah; thirdly, the deliverance of Jerusalem fourth/y, the
bringing of the whole house of Israel not in the land at the saving of Judahs
tents into the “ Wilderness of the People “ to bear their shame there for
forty years ; and ~ftftly the bringing of them thence, “ after they have
borne their shame “, into the land of Israel; and making them one nation with
Judah under the New Covenant, by which Yahwehs Servant, David II.,
becomes their High Priest and King for a season and a time. The whole
house of Israel thus united under One Head into one nation and kingdom, for the
first time since the revolt of the Ten Tribes from the house of David in the
third year of Solomons successor, is that kingdom represented by THE
STONE in Nebuchadnezzars dream, of which it is written, “ In the days
of these kings (of Gogs confederacy) the Eloah of the Heaven shall set
up a kingdom which shall never perish; and a dominion that shall not be left to
another people. It shall grind to powder and bring to an end all these
kingdoms; and itself shall stand for ever “. Now when this work is perfected,
it is manifest that Israel will be delivered from all their enemies, and the
power of the holy people no longer scattered. Yahweh says, that not one of them
shall be left in their enemies lands, such a thorough gleaning will be made of
them from among the nations. This grafting in again of Israel into their own
olive tree is the horizon that bounds the view of Daniels telescope.
There are no events beyond it revealed in his prophecy. It is the terminus of
all his visions—the vanishing-point upon which all his groups of symbols
terminate: so that in the seventh verse of the last chapter it is written, that
the revealing angel, in answer to the question, “ How long to the end of these
wonders?” held up his hands to heaven, and “ sware by Him that liveth for ever
that it shall be for a time, times, and an half; and when he shall have
accomplished to scatter the power of the holy people, all these wonders shall
be finished “.
With these premises before
us it will not be difficult to answer the inquiry, Who are Daniels
people, and their children, for whom Michael standeth up? They are the
righteous dead of Israel, both native-born and adopted; secondly, the
contemporary living believers who have obeyed the gospel of the kingdom; and thirdly,
Judahs third part, and the rising generation of the rest of Israel
disciplined in the Wilderness of the People subsequently to the fall of Gog on
Yahwehs mountains. These all in the aggregate constitute the Saints,
and the people of the Saints, for whose deliverance Michael stands up in the
time of trouble. Abel and Noah; Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; Moses and all the
prophets ; the apostles and an innumerable company redeemed from among men,
will then awake from their long sleep to show forth the praises of him who will
have caused them to exist incorruptible, and exalted them to reign with him
upon the earth:
while some others who
would not that he should rule Yahwehs people, and govern the nations,
will leave the dust to wail and gnash their teeth in shame and contempt among
the papal or goat nations of the west. There beyond the great gulf in exile
from the Holy Land,
pg 104
they will be tormented
among the worshipers of the Beast and his Image with fire and brimstone in the
presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb.
The phrase in Daniel, “
every one that is found written in the book “, has a two-fold signification;
the first in regard to the righteous, both alive and dead; and the second, to
Judahs third part. Malachi affords us the interpretation in the first
sense, and Isaiah in the last. Thus : “ They that feared Yahweh spake often one
to another; and Yahweh hearkened, and heard it; and a book of remembrance was
written before him for them that feared Yahweh, and that thought upon his name.
And they shall be mine, saith Yahweh Tzvaoth, in that day when I make up my
jewels” (Mal. 3:16; Exod. 32 :32~ Rev. 21 : 27)—the day when Michael stands up
for them.
Speaking of the day in
which Yahweh alone shall be exalted, Isaiah says : “in that day shall the
Branch of Yahweh (Judah) be beautiful and glorious; and the fruit of the land
excellent and comely for them that are escaped of Israel. And it shall be that
he that is left in Zion, and he that remaineth in Jerusalem, shall be called
holy, even every one that is written among the living in Jerusalem, when Yahweh
shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have
purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof by the spirit of judgment,
and by the spirit of burning” (Isa. 4:
2-4). These will be delivered by destroying the enemy out of the Holy City; the
others, by resurrection from the dead; for, “Many of them that sleep in the
dust of the earth shall awake for living ones of the Olahm —and they that be
wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to
righteousness as the stars in the Olahm and beyond “.
Pg 105
when ye shall see Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, and you
yourselves cast out “. This casting out is exile from the Holy Land to the
countries then still in the possession of the powers, indicated as “ the Beast,
the False Prophet, and the kings of the earth “, and styled by Christ, “ the
Devil and his Angels” (Matt. 25: 41). This region of the kingdom of Babylon is
separated from the Holy Land by a great gulf, called the Mediterranean,
which being subject to Michaels power, those who would repass into
Judea will not be able (Luke 16 : 26). The apocalyptic name of this judicial
region, or country where judgment is to be executed by the saints (Psa. 149
:5-9), is “a lake of fire burning with brimstone” (Rev. 19 : 20). With the
goat-nations of this region the resurrected exiles will be commingled, that
they may there “ drink of the wine of the wrath of the Deity, which is poured
out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and be tormented with fire
and brimstone in the presence of the holy messengers, and in the presence of
the Lamb” (Rev. 14:10). This tormenting as I have hinted already, is “the war
of the great day of God Almighty” (Rev.
16 : 14), in which Christ and his associates, as the commanders of the
Twelve Tribes, are engaged for the destruction of the kingdom of men. The
material of the war is symbolized by “fire and brimstone”; and being brought
to bear upon the objects of divine indignation by the people of the holy ones
as the soldiery of Christ and his associates in command, the battle-torment is
very fitly represented as being inflicted “in the presence of the holy
messengers and in the presence of the Lamb “. The saints are styled “ the holy
angels “, or messengers, because they are sent by the Ancient of Days to
destroy the fourth beast, or Latin and Greek powers of Babylon. This is the
judgment into which resurrection introduces those “ who know not God and obey
not the gospel of Jesus Christ “. Exiles among human devils and their princes,
they are even there the objects of reproaches and abhorrence. Whether their
miserable existence will be prolonged after the war of God Almighty against the
Powers of the Gentiles shall have ceased, there is no testimony in Daniel to
determine. The words of Jesus would lead one to conclude that it is not; for he
says, concerning them, “Those mine enemies who would not that I should reign
over them, bring hither, and slay them before me” (Luke 19 : 27); or,
apocalyptically, “in the presence of me, the Lamb “. When this sentence is
executed upon them, death lays hold of them a second time, and they “
reap corruption” as the threatened consequence of” sowing to the flesh “.
Hence, not having their names written in the Book of Life, they are expelled
from Paradise, “that they might not eat of the Tree of Life and live for ever
“. Death is therefore the eternal consummation that awaits them—death,
consequent upon their “having their part in the lake which burneth with fire
and brimstone: which is the second death” (Rev. 21 : 8). Thus, “the wages of
sin is death; but in the gracious gift of God is everlasting life
through Jesus Christ the Lord “.
A word of explanation may
be deemed necessary concerning the phrase “human devils and their princes “,
among whom I have said the
Pg 106
resurrected enemies of
Jesus are to be objects of abhorrence and reproach in the hour of judgment. in
the heraldry of the Bible the subjects of dominions are designated and
distinguished by the symbols or emblems which represent the power. Thus, the
Goat is representative of Greece; therefore the Greeks and their princes are
styled goats; and the Lion, of Anglo-Tarshish ; therefore the British
are termed “the young lions thereof “. Now the confederacy of Gentile powers
under the Autocrat of all the Russias in the latter days, is not only
symbolized by Nebuchadnezzars Image, and called Gog; but it is also
represented by “THE DRAGON “, which is to be “bound for a thousand years” by
the destruction of the fourth beast, and the taking away the dominion of the
Lion-Man, the Bear, and the Leopard, for a season and time; the subjects
therefore of the Dragon-dominion are Dragons. The dragon was the symbol
selected by the Romans to represent their imperiality. But the Spirit of the
Deity did not deem it sufficiently expressive of the character of the power,
which in the time of trouble is to be an imperial organization of sin,
specially manifested as the Adversary of Michael, his associates, and
Israel their people. The Sin-Imperiality, having its root in the
serpent-excited rebellion of the parents of our race against Yahweh Elohim, is
styled “that old Serpent”; while Michael and his party, at the epoch of
the binding, antagonize it as the Woman and her Seed. Hence, to express the
great wickedness of the Dragon-power, and its “enmity” to all pertaining
to the Holy Land, it is “surnamed Diabolos and Satanas “, rendered in the
common version “ the Devil and Satan”; which is not a translation, but a
transfer of the untranslated words into an English connection. The sentence in
which they occur is ho ophis ho arcbaios, hos esti diabolos kai .catanas; and
which in plain English signifies, “The old serpent, who is that causing to fall
and an adversary “. This will have ever been characteristic of all the administrations
of the Kingdom of Babylon from Nebuchadnezzar to the last of the czars, popes,
emperors, and kings of the Dragon-confederacy. These are the princes, or
“angels” of the Devil-and-Satan power; hence the phrase “Devil and his angels
“, whose power is to be destroyed by the fiery stream issuing forth from the
Ancient of Days; that is, by the consuming and destructive energy of Michael
and his hosts. The power, then, being commonly styled “the Devil” in the
English scriptures, all who are subject to its dominion, not being of the
household of faith, are” human devils and their princes”. Their imperial chief
is the head of the serpent-power, which is to be so bruised and crippled that
it shall be chieftainless for a thousand years.
The war of Ail-Shaddai,
which begins subsequently to the resurrection of the holy ones, does not
intermit, till all the Kingdoms of imperial Babylon become theirs. As the
conquerors of the powers that overcame them in the days of their flesh, the
praises of emancipated nations sound the fame of Israel to the ends of the
earth. As a nation they become mighty and glorious above all. But if the nation
be so
great, what may not be
expected of those who shall have led the tribes of Jacob to victory and renown,
and under the generalship of their commander-in-chief shall have brought the
blessings of Abraham upon the world? Daniel anticipates this inquiry by saying,
“And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament ;
and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for the olahm and beyond
“. Speaking of the same period, Jesus also says, “ Then shall the righteous.
shine forth as the sun in the Kingdom of their Father “. It is clear, then,
that when Daniels prediction shall come to pass, the Kingdom will have
been established—the work of setting it up will have been finished; and that
consequently, Israel will have been grafted into their own olive, and therefore
be not only “ the people of the holy ones “, but “the holy people “ ; a
distinction not without a difference. The only place in the original of Daniel
where Israel is styled “ the holy people “, is in the seventh verse of the last
chapter, where the time is announced at the end of which their power shall be
no more in the scattered condition it now is ; but when he predicted their
destruction by the Little Horn and the taking away of the evening and morning
sacrifice, in the eighth chapter and twenty-fourth verse, he styled them “ the
people of the holy ones “, but very far from being a holy people. Well, at that
time, when the people of the holy ones are a holy people; that is, at the end
of the time, times, and the half of a time, or rz6o years, the wise shall shine
in the Kingdom of the Eloah of the heaven. But, then, who are the wise?
This is a very important
question. It is truly a vital question to every one that reads it. As the
inquiry is suggested by Daniel, would it not be proper to let him suggest the
answer? This I think is expedient;
certainly preferable to the suggestion emanating from myself. Let us, then,
hear what he testifies. He tells us that the revealing angel said to him at the
end of his discourse, “Go thou thy way, Daniel “, (or desist from further
inquiries, in reply to a question he put for information, but which was not
granted. “ I heard “, said he, “ but I understood not : then said I, 0 my
Lord, when the end of these?” that is, of the time, times, and a half? He was
told the reason why he could not obtain the information sought; that it was “
because the words were closed up and sealed till the time of the end “ ; which
was tantamount to saying that when the time of the end should arrive, the
time-words would be no longer closed up and sealed; that is, they would speak
or become intelligible : for in that time many should run to and fro, and
knowledge should be increased. On a previous page I have shown that a time has
been present with us for several years, during which many have been running to
and fro, to the increase of knowledge considerably. As a result of this Daniel
was informed, in effect, that his question would then be solved, and besides
was given to know who should not, and who should understand it. “ None of the reshaim,
unjust shall understand ; but the wise shall understand “. The word reshaiim
signifies unjustified persons as opposed to tzaddikim, unjustified
persons, who are ‘ the wise “. This criticism accords with the words of
Jesus, who substitutes the phrase the tzaddikim or righteous, for “ the
wise “, in the text already quoted; and very properly, for
108
none can become righteous
who are not circumspect of mind, intelligent, or carefully considerate of
the divine testimony, which is the meaning of masleilim, translated wise.
But if the wise are to be
determined by those who can answer the question, “When the end of the time,
times, and a half? “where shall they be found? Some ten years ago in these
United States, we had a multitude of Reshaim, who claimed to be Maskilim
upon the ground that they could answer the question! They published far and
wide that the end would be in 1843 ! But time has proved that they were Reshaim,
and not Maskilim; for “none of them understood “. Wisdom, however,
bath her beginning in the fear of the Lord, which is precisely the alpha with
which they omitted to commence their studies. “Children, I will teach you
the fear of Yahweh.” It is a something to be taught, studied, and acquired. “
The fear of Yahweh is the instruction of wisdom” ; that way of
acceptance with the Deity which the Spirit of wisdom teaches in the Holy
Scriptures. In the days of his flesh, Jesus was “ of quick understanding in the
fear of Yahweh”; and so are they who besides him are “taught of God”; and it is
only they who are thus taught that are recognized as righteous; for of these it
is written, “they shall be all taught of God “ (John 6 : 44, 45). But how doth
the Deity teach men His fear? In the days of the apostles He taught them
through the Scriptures of the prophets, and the oral instruction of the
apostles; but since their time, by the Scriptures of the prophets and apostles
only; for an apostle says, “The Scriptures are able to make wise to salvation
through faith which is in Christ Jesus “. And again, he says, “All Scripture is
given by inspiration of God and is profitable for teaching, for conviction, for
correction, for instruction in righteousness : that the man of God may be
perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works “. Here then is the divine
power for teaching men His wisdom. And what more do men need than to be made
wise to salvation, instructed in righteousness, perfected, and thoroughly
furnished for the manifestation of good works?
They must study it for
themselves, thankfully availing themselves of all the help they can obtain from
those who are able to teach others, and who have been taught of God before
them. “If any man consent not to the wholesome words of our Lord Jesus, and to
the teaching which is according to godliness, he is proud, knowing nothing.”
Now, he preached the gospel of the kingdom, and commanded all who believed it
to be immersed. He prescribed immersion to no one else; because no one could be
benefited by it who was not first a divinely instructed believer of the
kingdoms gospel. Those who have obeyed this gospel are the tzaddikim, or
justified; those who have not obeyed it are the reshaim, or unjustified.
These are not taught of the Deity ; their fear of Him, such as it is, is taught
them by the precepts of men. The class is very large, and composed of
innumerable orders, which, however diversified, have one common characteristic
: they are “ contentious, and obey not the truth”; they “ stumble at the word,
being disobedient” (Rom. 2 : 8 ; 1 Pet.
2 : 8). None of these shall understand. This is the divine sentence
against them, and
109
accounts for the failure
of the many learned writers upon prophecy, to say nothing of the unlearned, in
the enterprise of reading correctly the past and future of the world by the
light of the prophetic word. Most of them lived too soon, and all of them were
ignorant of the gospel; so that being reshaim, with all their learning
they could only demonstrate each others foolishness, without any of them
succeeding in pointing out the truth.
The wise, then, of
the time of the end are those who believe “the things concerning the kingdom of
God and the name of Jesus Christ”; and have therefore been “immersed
into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 8 :
12 ; Matt. z8 : 19). He who understands these things has laid the foundation of
intelligence in the things which Daniel heard but understood not. Being wise,
he shall understand them if he give heed thereto. This is the encouragement
given; and to help them in endeavor is the purpose of this hook; that they may
not be taken at unawares by the consummation that approaches rapidly.
Pg 110
One and his brethren for
its princes; and the redeemed from among Israel and the nations during the
previous thousand ears for its nation of immortals, will be our globes
“ New Heavens and Earth
that shall never wax old
nor vanish away. Its times, therefore, will be interminable, an idea expressed
by the phrase, “ during the age, and during the age of the ages “(Dan. 7 : 18).
But the times of the
kingdom of Babylon cannot be calculated without reference to the times of Judahs
adversity. The reason of this is, that when these end, Israels
Commander-in-Chief and his associates at the head of the tribes, begin the work
of Babylons destruction, which they accomplish in the time allotted for
the restoration of the kingdom again to Israel. Hence there is a parallelism
between Babylon and Judahs times that must not be lost sight of; for
Babylon is only a subject of prophecy so far as it is in opposition to the
things of the kingdom of God.
Now, the whole number of
the times of the continuance of the kingdom of Babylon is seven times; and the
whole number of the times at the end of which Judahs subjection to it
shall cease, is also seven. The truth of this in relation to Babylon appears
from the sign recorded in the fourth chapter of Daniel. There Babylons
dominion is represented by a tree so lofty that it was seen from the end of the
earth. But it was revealed to Nebuchadnezzar by what happened to the tree and
to himself, that the dominion should not always continue in his family and the
city he so proudly boasted of. He was, however, instructed by his seven years
expulsion from the throne, and the kingdom, nevertheless, being assured to him,
that though Babylon should cease to be the throne of the dominion, the
Babylonish kingdom would exist in the earth for the period signified by the
seven times ; when it would become apparent to all the nations of the dominion,
that “the Heavens do rule “.
The seven times during
which Nebuchadnezzar herded with the beasts, were the sign-period significative
of a longer period than itself; yet containing within itself the elements of
the calculation. “A day for a year “ is a rule to which all prophetic times are
reducible. In seven times, which are less than seven years, we have 2520 days,
which are prophetically equal to the same number of solar years. The end of
these is the terminus of the times of the Babylonish kingdom of men, or of the
stump of the Babylonian Tree banded with iron and brass ; that is, under its
Latino-Greek constitution.
Judah and his companions
have also seven times allotted to them, before they can obtain deliverance from
Babylonish oppression and reproach. This appears from the twenty-sixth chapter
of Leviticus and the eighteenth verse, which I render as follows : “If ye will
not yet for all this hearken unto me, then I will increase to punish you seven
times for your sins “. This threat is repeated for several times in the same
chapter. It cannot mean four distinct punishments of seven years each, or seven
punishments. The history of the nation forbids this interpretation : it can
therefore only signify that, if they would persist in their transgressions of
the law, notwithstanding all the chastisements they experienced while living in
Yahwehs sight
Pg 111
upon His land, He would
bring upon them a punishment of seven prophetic times duration, or 2520 years.
But at what national epoch
should this 2,520 years of adversity commence? If they began with the end of
the kingdom of the Ten Tribes of Israel, the2520 years of the scattering
without any movement towards restoration would end in A.D. 1823. According to
my chronology in Cbronikoa Hebraikon, the kingdom of Israel was
abolished B.C. 697, in the year of the worlds age, 3392. The years
before Christ deducted from 252o, give the A.D. 1823, the epoch of the Sixth
Vial, in which the 1290 of Dan. 12:11
terminated; and in which “that determined” began to be “poured out upon
the Desolator” of the land (Dan. 9~ 27). This would be the ending of the 2520.
But, if this be not a calculation upon correct data, then our inquiry is
limited to the history of Judah subsequently to the expulsion of the Ten
Tribes. After this calamity the remnant of these tribes mingled themselves with
Judah; and in their history we find nothing of any note as an epoch but the
celebrated Passover in the eighteenth of Josiahs reign. Of this it is
written, “There was no passover like to that kept in Israel from the days of
Samuel the prophet “. It was a royal effort to being the nation to repentance,
that the threatened chastisement of the Law might be averted, “Notwithstanding,
the Lord turned not from the fierceness of his great wrath, wherewith his anger
was kindled against Judah.. . . And he said, I will remove Judah also out of my
sight, as 1 have removed Israel, and will cast off this city Jerusalem which I
have chosen, and the temple of which I said, My name shall, be there “. in
seventeen years after this, that is; in the first of Nebuchadnezzars
reign, the dominion of Babylon overshadowed the kingdom of Judah. The seven
times had become current. Still in judgment the God of Israel remembers mercy;
for He says, “If they shall confess their iniquity. . . and their uncircumcised
hearts be humbled .. . Then will I remember my covenant with Jacob; and also my
covenants with Isaac and with Abraham will I remember; and I will remember the
land. . . . And yet for all that they have done, when they be in the land of
their enemies, I will not cast them away, neither will I abhor them to
destroy them utterly, and to break my covenant with them; for I am Yahweh,
their Elohim “.
But the probability of
Josiahs passover being an epoch in Judahs Calendar, seems
converted into certainty by Ezekiel. He says,” Now it came to pass in the
thirtieth year I was among the captives, by the river of Chebar, which was
the fifth year of King Jehoiachins captivity” (Ezek.1:1-2). In another
place he says, “It came to pass in the seven and twentieth year the word of
Yahweh came unto me” (Ezek. 29: 17). After identifying the thirtieth year with
the fifth of Jehoiachins captivity, he dates the communications he
receives from Yahweh by the year of the captivity until the seven and
twentieth, which was the sixteenth year after Jerusalem was smitten (Ezek.
33:21). This seems to have been the latest, which was therefore the
fifty-second year from the passover. But why did he not continue to date from
the passover instead of from the captivity? The reason
Pg 112
was evidently because, as
the captivity was for 70 years, he preferred to mark its diminution for the
encouragement of his brethren, than to note the lapse of time from the
Passover, which being the epoch of a long series of ages, was calculated to
depress the national mind by reminding it of the remoteness of its deliverance.
The thirtieth year period
is thus accounted for. Josiah reigned thirty-one years; and the Passover being
in the eighteenth year of his reign, a remainder is left of thirteen years.
Jehoahaz, his son, reigned three months. He was succeeded by his brother
Jehoiakim, who reigned eleven years. Next was Jehoiachin, who reigned
three months and three days, and was then carried off to Babylon, and Zedekiah
set up in his place. Here were 29 years, 6 months, and 10 days, inclusive of
the fifth of Jehoiachins captivity, or the thirtieth from the
passover, as Ezekiel states; that is, B.C. 598. Seeing, then, that he has made
it a point of departure for a calculation of years, upon this basis the 2520
would end A.D. 1892 ; for the Great Passover occurred B.C. 628, which, deducted
from the period, gives the annus Domini stated for the end.
Another epoch, however,
must be sought for the commencement of Babylons 2520 years. These are
Babylons seven times in its relation to Judah; and must therefore be
calculated from the epoch of Judahs first subjection to its dominion.
This happened in the 4th of Jehoiakims reign, which was also
the first of Nebuchadnezzars, and B.C. 611. In this year Jeremiah
prophesied that Judah and the surrounding nations should be subject to the King
of Babylon for 70 years; and that at the end of these, in the reign of his
grandson, many nations and great kings should serve themselves of him (Jer. 26:1-Il ; 27 : 7); that is, make the
Babylonish kingdom their own: all of which has come to pass to the very letter.
There seems to be a
remarkable fitness in commencing the seven times of the kingdom of Babylon with
the beginning of Nebuchadnezzars reign; inasmuch as he may be regarded
as the second, or modern, founder of the state, Nimrod being the first. “Is not
this great Babylon “, said he, “that I have built for the capital of the
kingdom by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty? While the
word was in the kings mouth, there fell a voice from heaven saying, 0
king Nebuchadnezzar, to thee it is spoken, the kingdom is departed from thee!
And seven times shall pass over thee, until thou know that the Most High hath
power over the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He will “.
Admitting, then, these
epochs for a beginning, Judahs seven times will terminate in the A.D.
1892; and Babylons, A.D. 1908. Judahs period is thus spoken of
by Hosea: “I will be unto Ephraim, saith Yahweh, as a lion, and as a
young lion to the house of Judah:
I, even I, will tear and
go away; I will take away and none shall rescue. I will go and return to my
place till they acknowledge their offence and seek my face; in their affliction
they will seek me early “. This is their seven-times condition. The particular
“affliction” called in Jeremiah “ the time of Jacobs trouble” (Jer. 30
: 7), has not yet come upon them. “Alas!” he exclaims, in the prospect of
Pg 113
it, “for that day is
great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacobs trouble;
but he shall be saved out of it. For it shall come to pass in that day, saith
Yahweh Tzvaoth, that I will break his (the Russo-Gogian Autocrats) yoke
from off thy neck, and will burst thy bonds; and strangers shall NO MORE serve
themselves of Jacob; but they shall serve Yahweh their Elohim, and the Beloved
their King, whom I will raise up unto them” from the dead (Acts 2:30).
This is the “time of trouble” spoken of by Daniel, and yet future. Now, in view
of this, Hosea represents them as saying to one another,
Come, and let us return
unto Yahweh; for he hath torn, and he will heal us: he hath smitten, and he
will bind us up. After two days he will revive us : in the third day he
will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight “ (Hos. 6 : i, z). These days
are three periods of a thousand years each. The two days are past, and
the nation is now in the third day of its smitten condition, 2497 years
of the seven times having passed away. The posterity of Jacob have advanced 497
years into the third day “. Thus it is, that as the Beloved their king was
raised up bodily in the third day; so, after the similitude thereof shall his
nation be politically (and many of them as literally as he) raised up to live
in Yahwehs sight (2 Kings 17 : 23), that is, in their fatherland, in
the current day of the seven times.
Woe be to the kingdom of
Babylon when the political resurrection of Israel occurs (Ezek. 37~ 1-14); for “much
torment and sorrow” are decreed against its populations during the last
forty years of its existence. This will appear from the testimony of Micah. The
prophet in behalf of his countrymen supplicates Yahweh, saying, “Feed thy
people with thy rod, the flock of thine heritage, which dwell solitarily in the
wood (alone and not reckoned of the nations) in the midst of Carmel: let them
feed in Bashan and Gilead, as in the days of old “. To this Yahweh replies, “
According to the days of thy coming out of the land of Egypt will I show unto
him (Israel) marvelous things. The nations shall see and be confounded at all
their might : they shall lay their hand upon their mouth, their ears shall be
deaf. They shall lick the dust like a serpent, they shall move out of their
strongholds as creeping things of the earth: they shall be afraid of Yahweh,
our Elohim, and shall fear because of thee “, 0 Israel. There can be no mistake
here. History proves that since the prophet wrote this it has never come to
pass. It is, therefore, in the future. Israel were forty years passing from
Egypt to Canaan; they will consequently be forty years in passing from their
enemies lands of the Babylonian dominion into the Holy Land, from Egypt to
Canaan; they will consequently be forty years in passing to dwell there as an
independent nation. In this their transit through “ the wilderness of the
people” (Ezek. 20-: 35) they will have
to fight their way; and in so doing make the Babylonian nations “lick the dust
like a serpent” ; a phrase very appropriate to the prostration of the Serpent
power.
Here, then, are forty
years to be deducted from the seven times of Babylon for the period during
which the Holy Ones and their people are” taking away its dominion to consume
and destroy it unto
Pg 114
the end” (Dan. 7:11,26). This brings us back from A.D. 1908
to A.D. 1868. But before Israel and the Holy Ones can enter upon this work,
Michael, the great commander, must stand up, and the Holy ones must be raised
from the dead; and a communication must be established between Israel and the
land of their enemies and their future commanders : for the reason given for
their fighting against the sons of Greece is “because Yahweh is with them, and
shall be seen over them “. The Lord, then, will have come as the Ancient of
Days at some time soon after 1868 : how is that epoch to be approached?
In reply to this inquiry,
it may be remarked, that nothing can be done by Israel without the Saints or
Holy Ones; therefore it must be ascertained what is testified of them, that it
may be seen, if possible, when they appear upon the arena of debate.
The seventh of Daniel
reveals that the Holy Ones sojourning under the dominion of the
Latino-Babylonian power, or Papacy, are to be given over to its power to the
end of a time, times, and the dividing of time, or z6o years. This period is in
the current year complete. Their oppressor and destroyer still exists indeed,
but sick unto death; and will continue so till their corporeal resurrection.
Now the element of the power that has moved heaven and earth for their
destruction, is that represented by the Eyes and Mouth of the Little Horn that
subdues the Three Horns. The Eyes and Mouth power is evidently the chief actor
against the holy ones, the horn in which they are placed being subordinate to
its will. The 1260 years of its prevalence against them must therefore be
calculated from the institution of the Eyes and Mouth as a power of the
Babylonian dominion; which institution would be equivalent to “The king
honouring a god of guardians in his estate or realm; and acknowledging and
increasing him with glory” (Dan. 11 :38,
39) ; and not from the first appearance of the Ten Horns, or of the Little One
that came up after them and subdued three of them. Now, the acknowledgment of
the Eyes and Mouth as the god of the Kingdom of Babylon, or” god upon earth “,
as the Pope is styled, was in the reign of Phocas, who wrote to the Latin
Bishop in the A.D. 604 and acknowledged his supremacy over all other
ecclesiastics of the realm. This private recognition was followed by an
imperial decree in A.D. 607, and in the year after, as before mentioned, a
pillar was erected commemorative of the event, with the date of A.D. 6o8,
inscribed upon it. This may have been only the date of the erection of the
pillar. Is it not safe, then, to select for the beginning of the period which
is to end at the coming of the Ancient of Days, the A.D. 607? The analogy of
the signs of the times favours it; the date of the Phocian decree confirms it.
My conviction is that the judgment upon Babylon will be announced as
about to sit; and that the Ancient of Days and the saints will meet “ in the
air” and in clouds 1 Thess. 4: 17), in the ending of the 1260 years from the
epoch A.D. 6o6-8.
At the end of this period,
then, the saints are delivered. The papacy, with all the power it can stir up,
cannot make successful war upon them any more; we must not, however, conclude
from this that the Latino-Babylonian confederacy will immediately be dissolved,
Pg 115
and become powerless. It
has power to make war after the resurrection, though not successfully ; for it
is written of it, “ power was given to him to practice forty and two months “,
or i z6o years. These must therefore end at the termination of the Mouths
practicing prosperously; yet the powers will contend for empire till the end of
the period indicated in Dan. : 7, which is marked by the finished concentration
of the power of the Twelve Tribes, at the end of the seven times of the kingdom
of men.
Taking the resurrection
then, soon after A.D. i868, the beginning of Micahs forty years will
have arrived in which “ the mystery of the Deity” will he finished. Is the
Russo-Gogian Autocracy broken by the Stone-power before or after the end of
this forty-year period? I should answer, In the course of it. Again : Is it
broken to pieces before or after the resurrection of the saints? After it,
without doubt; for speaking of the destruction of the Clay power: that is, of a
power that “ladeth itself with thick clay “, by gathering unto it all nations,
and heaping unto it all people, and thus accumulating what does not belong to
it: Habbaluk says to its chief, “ Shall they not rise up that shall bite
thee unexpectedly, and awake that shall vex thee? .
For the Stone shall cry
out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall answer it. . . . For the
earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of Yahweh, as the waters
cover the sea . . . Yahweh is in his holy place; be silent, all the earth
before him “. This is evidently a prediction of the resurrection of the power
that is to destroy the Clay-dominion. The Clay-power stands unconsciously
waiting for this in the Holy Land and City. The saints gathered unto Christ in
the political air or heaven, will be witnesses of its prostration as Israel
were of Pharaohs. All the glory of this will be due to the Ancient of
Days, with whom none who are not spirit, but “the chosen “ only, co-operate in
the infliction of the first disaster upon the enemy, which is by pestilence,
mutual slaughter, hail and thunderbolts from heaven. This cripples and
disintegrates, but does not finally destroy, the Image. It is as a Moscow to
Napoleon, which subsequently required repeated blows for the destruction of his
power. Christ and the holy ones as clouds and hail grind the shattered fragments
of the Russo-Gogian Image to powder. The Lion-man, the Bear, and the Leopard,
or the gold, the silver, and the brass, must have their dominion taken away.
These are borderers upon the Holy Land, and will demand the immediate attention
of the Stone and Beam out of the timber; “who shall waste the land of Assyria
with the sword, and the land of Nimroud in the entrances thereof: thus shall
Israel be delivered from the Assyrian, when he cometh into the land, and when
he treadeth within their borders” (Mic. : 6). The taking of the saints up into
the aerial will be to gather them there for the execution of judgment upon
those who are to be the objects of divine indignation; and to make them as the
falling artillery of the clouds. For these reasons and others that might be
adduced, it may be concluded that the resurrection will precede the overthrow
of the Russian hosts upon the mountains of Israel.
Pg 116
But the holy ones raised
from the dead, and Jerusalem and the Holy Land delivered after the ending of
the 1335 years, “Yahweh is in His holy palace “, and for a time “ all the earth
is silent before Him “, and trembling in expectation of what shall come next.
At this crisis, He is as “an Ensign upon the mountains” ; an4 the tranquillity
of the epoch is “ dry heat impending lightning, as a cloud of dew in the
sultriness of harvest “. It will then be said of Jerusalem, “Yahweh is there “.
The remnant of Judah in the land for the seven months ensuing the fall of Gog
on the mountains of Israel will be occupied in burying the dead, and cleansing
its surface from the slain (Ezek. 39 : 11-16). The destruction of Pharaoh and
his host, which, with the plagues of Egypt, were well known to all that
generation, did not cause the nations to confederate and to rush upon Moses and
his people to swallow them up ; nor did it forty years after deter the
seven nations of Canaan from combining to preserve their country from conquest
by Israel. It is true that when, in addition to this, they heard that Yahweh
dried up the waters of Jordan, and that the two Amorite powers east of that
river had been exterminated, “their hearts melted, neither was their spirit in
them any more “ ; nevertheless, the kings assembled their armies and contended
for five years in numerous battles against Israel. Though melted with fear,
they found no chance of escape but in resistance. Extermination was decreed
against them. Death without resistance or with it was their only alternative;
they accepted the latter, and perished sword in hand by the armies of Israel.
After the same type will
it be with the Ten Toes of the Image, the Latin Kingdoms of the Babylonian
dominion after the fall of the Czar and his hosts, the Pharaoh of modern times.
Micah says, “ Their ears shall be deaf “. Whatever news may greet them from the
Holy Land, will have no more effect upon the powers than Yahwehs
message to Pharaoh. They are to be dashed in pieces as a potters
vessel; diplomacy or resistance, the result will be the same. They are to
become as the chaff of the summer threshing-floors. Fair warning, however, will
be given, that Israel and their friends who, believing in the bursting forth of
impending vengeance, may desire to escape it, may separate themselves from
those who determine to resist. I will be still, saith Yahweh; yet in my
dwelling-place I will be without fear “. This is subsequently to their
overthrow at Bozrah— an awful pause between the treading of the Edom and
Jehosaphat winepress, and Yahwehs roaring out of Zion, and uttering His
voice from Jerusalem (Joel 3 :16).
In the silence of this “ truce
of God “, what is the great movement of the time? The question may be
answered in the words of Isaiah that Yahweh having beaten off the enemy from
the channel of the river (Euphrates) to the stream of Egypt (the Nile), it
shall come to pass that the great trumpet shall then be blown, and the
Israelites shall come who were ready to perish in the land of Assyria, and the
outcasts in the land of Egypt, and shall worship Yahweh in the holy mount of
Jerusalem (Isa. 27 : 12-13). Another prophet says, “Adonai Yahweh shall blow
the trumpet “, when he shall be seen over Israel (Zech.
Pg 117
9 : 14). This is the
period referred to in the” memorial of blowing of trumpets” on the first day of
the seventh month under the Law (Lev. 23: 24). Two trumpets will be blown. By
the blowing of the first the princes, heads of the thousands of Israel, called
the holy ones, are gathered unto the Lord; and when the second is also blown,
all Israels hosts will begin to assemble towards the dwelling-place of
their King (Num. so : 1-7).
The trumpet to be blown by
the Anointed One of Yahweh, styled Adonai Yahweh, is a proclamation to the
world : as it is written, “I will send, maihem, of those that escape to
the nations, to Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, mosh/eai / esheth, sounders of
truth ;* to Jubal and Javan, the coasts far off that have not heard my name,
neither have seen my glory; and they shall declare my glory among the nations”
Isa. 66 : 19). “Yahweh gives the word; great is the company of those
that publish it “ (Psa. 68 :11).
This company is
Apocalyptically represented as an “angel flying in the midst of the
(Babylonian) heaven”; and the truth they sound out about the fame and glory of
the Lord is styled “the good news of the aion “, pertaining to the age. It
commands the nations to
* Translators of Isaiah have been considerably at a loss
what to do with moshkai kesheth. The first word some have thought should
be rendered Aleshec, called Moschi by the Greeks as a proper
name; seeing it is associated with Tubal as in other places. Boothroyd has so
rendered it, and Lowth is inclined to it, as appears from his notes; but in the
text he renders the phrase “who draw the bow “, in common with the
English version. But though it cannot be denied that the words may be literally
rendered thus, this rendering certainly does not apply in this place. “ Wbo
draw the bow” is not at all more characteristic of Tarshish, Pu!, and Lud,
than of Tubal and Javan, of whom it is not affirmed. They all drew the bow in
battle when the prophet wrote ; and Tarshish at the present time is more famous
for gunpowder and cannon-balls than for bows and arrows.
The literal sense of the
words cannot, therefore, be the proper one in this place. I have rendered it, “
sounders of truth “, which is in agreement with what is affirmed of
those sent, saying, “And they shall declare my glory (or sound the
truth) among the nations
Aloshkai comes from mashakh, to draw, masbakh
baz-zera signifies literally to draw the seed, or figuratively to
sow; because the seed is drawn out from the bag to be scattered.
Also the phrase mashakh by yovail, literally to draw the trumpet. This
expresses the real action in sounding a trumpet before the blast is given ;
hence the figurative word for mashakh here is to sound; that is,
it signifies “ to sound by implication.
The word kesheth literally
signifies a bow: but the bending of the tongue in speech is
likened to a bow in Scripture, as, “they bend their tongue like a bow for lies
“. It may also be bent like a bow for truth. In process of time the last letter
of the word called Thai was regarded as a radical, and changed
into another called Teth, being written without the points k.-sh-t instead
of k-sb-tb : hence the Chaldec kushla for the Hebrew kashtha
pronounced kashta, “to shoot with a bow “.
The word kesheth and
koshet, then, may be taken as the same. By turning to Gesenius under the
last word it will be found to signify both a bow and truth. Hence,
moshkai kesheth are drawers of truth. They are sent to draw the great
trumpet of Adonai Yahweh, the sound of which is the declaration of His
glory among the nations that had nod previously heard of His fame nor seen His
glory. Drawers of truth, then, are sounders or proclaimers of truth Apolocalyptically
styled euaggelion aionion, “ the good message pertaining to the age “.
Pg 118
transfer their allegiance
to the Deity, under penalty of the judgment in case of refusal. Its words are,
“Fear the Deity, and give glory to him : for the hour of his judgment is come”
; and to Israel scattered in all the Kingdom of Babylon, and in its capital
especially, the proclamation saith, “ Come out of her, my people, that ye be
not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues “ (Rev. 14 : 6,7:
18 :4).
The sounding of this
proclamation will cause a general movement among the Jews, who will be allured
by it, and prepare to leave the lands of their captivity. “I will allure her,
saith Yahweh, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak friendly to her
heart” (Hos. 2 14; Ezek. 20~ 35). As to the Latino-Babylonian powers of
Europe, they will be stirred up to war by the proclamation. In the Apocalypse
they are styled the Beast, the False Prophet, and the Kings of the earth of
whom it is said “they and their armies gathered together to make war against
the Lamb, and against his army “ (Rev.
19 : 19 ; 17 : 14). When this war actually breaks Out, the contest will
be between the Jews as the Lords army, and the armies of the Babylonian
kings; and is styled, “ the war of the Great-day of God Almighty “. The period
of its continuance is the day during which the judgment sits upon Daniels
fourth beast; and the result of which is, the “ thrones are cast down “, and
their kingdoms become Yahwehs and his Christs. When this is
consummated the seven times of the Kingdom of Men will be fully exhausted. The
time allotted to the blowing of the great trumpet will be, I doubt not, several
years. There will be much to accomplish among the nations which do not belong
to the Latino-Greek Babylonian dominion. Yahweh did not send Israel against
the Canaanites till forty years after the fall of Pharaoh; and although it will
not be so long as this, I have reason to believe that the war between the Jews
and the Papal Powers will not begin until some time after the smiting of the
Russo-Gogian Image; how long after is conjectural.
The great trumpet to be
blow-n announces that “ the hour . the Deitys judgment is come”; and in
the apostrophe upon the fate of Babylon it is said, “in one hour is thy
judgment come “. Now, in that judgment, not only Rome, but the Papacy, or false
Prophet-power, the imperial Beast that sustains it, and the Papal Governments
and nations are judged. The time, therefore, in judging or executing vengeance
upon the one, is the period of judgment for them all. At that crisis they will
all he confederates in arms against Christ and his armies; for it is written
concerning the papal powers, represented by the Ten Horns, or Ten Toes of the
Russo-Gogian Image, “they shall receive power as kings one hour with the
Beast “, or Little Horn with the Eyes and Mouth. “These have one mind, and
shall give their power and strength to the beast. For the Deity hath put in
their hearts to fulfil His will, and to agree, and give their kingdom to the
beast, until the words of Deity shall be fulfilled . . . These shall make war
with the Lamb “. Therefore John says, “I saw the beast and the kings of the
earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him and against
his army “. “But the Lamb shall overcome them “ : for “ the beast was taken,
and with him the false prophet,
pg119
and cast alive into the
lake of fire; and the remnant were slain with the sword of the King of kings
and Lord of lords” (Rev. 17 and 19), that is by Israel, as shown
elsewhere.
Now the use of the words hour
and one hour, in these places, is not without precise signification.
They are not used vaguely or indefinitely. They are figurative of an exact
number of solar years, which number is the twelfth of a time. Bible days are
twelve hours long; so that an hour is the twelfth part of a daytime. If the
time be an enlautos, that which returns upon itself~ with another
twelfth termed a month, then an hour signifies only thirty dqys, being
diminished by the greater term, as in Rev. 9 : 55 the third day “. Thus it is,
that as the Beloved their king was raised up bodily in the third day; so, after
the similitude thereof shall his nation be politically (and many of them as
literally as he) raised up to live in Yahwehs sight (a Kings 17 : 23),
that is, in their fatherland, in the current day of the seven times. ; but if
it stand absolutely, that is, with no other sign to qualify it, it signifies thirty
years, or the twelfth of a time of 360 years. While touching upon this
point, I may remark that half an hour is used Apocalyptically as
significative of years in the saying, “ there was silence in the heaven about
the space of half an hour”; that is, between the opening of the Seventh Seal
and the casting fire upon the earth—a period of fourteen years, being “ about
the space “, but not quite “ half an hour “, which is fifteen years. The
meaning of the saying is, “ There was peace among the rulers for fourteen years
“, or, from A.D. 323 to 337, as may be seen by reference to Gibbons “
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire “.
Thirty years, then, being
the duration of art hour in these places, the confederacy of the papal powers
will continue thirty years, during which judgment is being executed upon them
by the people of the holy ones, who torment them with all the calamities of
war. These thirty years war are the last years of Micahs forty
for the grinding of the shattered elements of the Image to powder by the Stone,
and ending with the annihilation of Babylon at the expiration of its 25 20
years and beginning therefore about A.D. 1878.
But besides the 2400
years, the seventy heptades of 490 years, and the two periods of 1260 years
each, there are other two periods that yet remain to be explained. These are
one of 1290 years, and another of 1335 years. The former period relates to the
desolation of the Holy Land and its desolator; the latter to the resurrection
of the Holy Ones, of whom the prophet had the assurance of being one.
The 1290 years are noted
in the eleventh verse of the twelfth chapter; which, however, as it stands in
the English version, cannot possibly be understood. From this the reader will
suppose that the 1290 years should be calculated from the taking away of the
daily: that is, from the suppression of sacrifice When the Roman power
destroyed Jerusalem, A.D. 72 ; but in that case “that determined” should
have begun to be poured out upon the desolator in A.D. 1362, which every one
knows was not the fact.
The proper rendering of
this text is, “ And after the time the daily shall be removed, even for to set
up an abomination making desolate a thousand two hundred and ninety days “. The
time referred to in this place, is the Seventy Heptades of 490 years ; “ after”
the lapse of this time, “the evening-morning sacrifice” should be removed. But
how long would it be after the end of this time ere the daily should be
removed? The answer to this question was one of the
Pg 120
times and seasons which
the Father had put in His own power (Acts 7); therefore Jesus said, “Of that
day and hour knoweth no man,no not the angels which are in heaven, neither
the Son, but the Father. Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when
the time is,, (Mark 13: 32). This he said to his apostles ; but since then “
the. day and hour” have passed away; and we know that Judahs tribulation,
characterized by the removal of the daily, the casting down of the foundation
of its sanctuary and the law, and the destruction of their commonwealth,
occurred about A.D. 72.
Now the daily was removed
for “ the overspreading of abominations even to destruction, and that
determined should be poured upon the desolator “ (Dan. 9 : 27). One of these
abominations was to prevail for upwards of twelve hundred years, and to be
found in desolating possession of the land at the end of 1290. As every one
knows, this desolator of the Holy Land thus far is the Ottoman Power, a “
time-of-the-end” representative of the long-prevailing “ abomination “. The
1290 were to reach to the end when the time came to pour out upon the desolator; it is evident therefore, they
could not begin A.D. 72. The text does not require that they should; and the
passage last quoted shows that they were to end at the period of pouring out
upon the desolator; that is, when the 1290 years should end, the pouring out of
“ that determined” upon the Ottoman should begin. It is well-known that there
has been a notable pouring out of calamities upon this power from A.D. 1820-3
to the present time. But the end is not immediately; for-the pouring out period
is to continue to the drying-up of the power which is marked by the initiation
of the restitution of Israels power. If the Ottoman were demolished in
a month, there would still be an outpouring in reserve for the desolator in
actual occupation of Jerusalem at the Advent of the Ancient of Days. This will
be the power constituted of the Greeks and Latins under the Autocrat of all the
Russias, as before explained. His will be the last régime of the
desolating abomination; and when the judgments of the Sixth Vial, which dry up
the Euphratean Power (Rev.16:12) are exhausted, the desolation of Jerusalem and
the Holy Land will terminate in the helpless annihilation of their Gentile
destroyers, both Muscovite and Turk
Lastly, 45 years after the end of the
1290 years, the period of the Little Horn of the Wests prevalence over
the Holy Ones is brought to a close. This period, it will be remembered, is
1260 years long. The end of it is designated by that of the 1335 years,
which have an epochal beginning in common with the 1290. They commence 75 years
before the 1260, being times pertaining to the Heirs of the Holy Land, or Kings
of a Suns risings ; and therefore part of Judahs times; while
the 1260 are a part of the times of the kingdom of Babylon—the period of its
prevalence against the Holy Ones and their people: and consequently to be
calculated from a different beginning, though ending at the same epochal lapse
of A.D. 1868. “ Blessed he that is waiting and shall LABOUR for the thousand
three hundred and five and thirty days.” This is the text in which the 1335
year are noted; and the only place in the Bible where they are to be found. To
look and
Pg 121
labour for them is to
watch for the end of them, and to strive to attain what is to be manifested at
their expiration. When they terminate, the resurrection of the dead predicted
in Dan. i 2 : a, will come to pass; for the revelator said to the prophet, “ Go
thou away till the end : for thou shalt lie down and arise (thiamod) to
thine inheritance at the end of the days “. The days last mentioned in the
context are the 1335, and must therefore be the days referred to. Daniel was to
lie down till the end of these days, till which time he was to be at rest,
“sleeping in the dust of the earth “. This is his present condition, mere dust
and ashes of the tomb recently discovered in Persia. But in perhaps only a few
months, when the 1335 years terminate, he will “arise to his inheritance “ in
the kingdom of God, in which he and all the prophets, with many others, will rejoice
together (Luke 13 : 28).
In conclusion, let the
reader observe that it is not merely he that desires or looks for the end of
the 1335 days who is pronounced “blessed “. There are many who desire the
resurrection of the wise, and, as Balaam, would like to be of the number; but
who either give themselves no trouble to attend to it, or are ignorant of the
means of attainment, or will only labour for it according to their own suppositions
of possibilities. These suppose everything but prove nothing. The blessedness
of the resurrection is a laborious acquisition—a contention for the mastery
over ourselves, and the world around us. This can only be attained by the
“taught of God “, who understand His doctrine and yield it the faithful and
self-sacrificing obedience He requires. Then “labour to enter into his rest;
for many shall seek to enter in and shall not be able “. They will be excluded
from the Kingdom of God because they have not sought entrance into it in the
appointed way. “Seek first the Kingdom of God “, saith the Great Teacher, “and
His righteousness “. How highly important is this exhortation now, seeing that
in a very short time the resurrection will have transpired, and no further
invitation to inherit it be presented to the world. Ought we not, then, to
awake to earnestness, and by a rigid scrutiny of our faith and practice, obtain
a scriptural satisfaction, if we shall be able to stand unabashed before the
Judge of the living and the dead? The glory that shall follow is great for the
approved. The world is theirs (1Cor. 3 : 21, 22), when all nations come and do
homage before the Prince of Israel, because his judgments are made manifest
(Rev. 15 : 4). But before they can have
“power over the nations” (Rev. 2: 26) they must bind the strong that rule them.
This is their mission at the end of the 1335 years : “to execute vengeance
upon the nations, and punishment upon the peoples; to bind their kings with
chains and their nobles with fetters of iron; to execute upon them the judgment
written: this honour have all his saints “. For a period of forty years, they
will be engaged in this work, and in the organizing the world upon new and
better principles. When this work is finished we shall have what is styled “the
world to come “. The kingdoms, empires, and republics now existing, will be
but shadows of the past eclipsing righteousness and truth—blots upon the page
of human story. The Kingdom of Babylon, among the rest, will have passed
through all its phases of iniquity and crime, and
Pg 122
at length have disappeared
like chaff before the wind, being ground to powder by the kingdom of God, which
as a great mountain fills the whole earth (Dan.
2 :35). The nations and their rulers will then heartily respond to the
exhortation, saying, “ Make a joyful noise to Yahweh, all the earth: make a
loud noise, and rejoice and sing praise. Sing unto Yahweh with the harp; with
the harp and the voice of a psalm. With trumpets and sound of comets make a
joyful noise before Yahweh, the King. Let the sea roar, and the fulness
thereof:
the world and they that
dwell therein. Let the floods clap their hands; let the hills be joyful
together before Yahweh; for he cometh to rule the earth; with righteousness
shall he rule the world, and with equity the peoples “ (Psa. 98 : 4-9).
Such is the solution of
the Great Eastern Question which has been providentially formed for the
development of the terrible situation of” the Time of the End “.