last design of God began to approach its realization; the external contrast between the profane and the holy now became less obvious, because, by the Spirit of Christ, a far stronger support and aid was given to the latter. Both however still continued to exist; even in the believer the good does not attain in this life to complete and sole dominion. Hereafter, however, when the Lord shall be all in all, a time will come when every contrast of the holy and the unholy, every impure mixture of both, every distinction of degrees even in that which is holy, will cease. The case is analogous, when, according to Jer. 31: 40, the whole valley of corpses shall be hap, and brought within the circumference of Jerusalem. As the first member predicts the conversion of all that is profane into that which is holy, so the second, the doing away of the distinction of degrees between the holy things themselves. To the most holy vessels, under the old covenant, belong the bowls before the altar, the basins, into which the blood of the victims was received and then from them sprinkled against the altar and poured out at its foot. For of all vessels, these were most immediately used for the most holy service of the Lord. To the utensils on the contrary, which were the least holy, belonged the pots, those, viz. in which the flesh of the victims was cooked. For that these are here spoken of, appears from v. 21. They were used in the service of man. The Jewish interpreters, according to their opinion of the eternal duration of the ceremonial law, for the refutation of which this passage alone, as well as that Mal. 1: 11, is sufficient, must endeavour here also by a forced explanation to set aside the true sense, which is so unpleasant to them. Thus Kimchi remarks, whom Abarbanel follows: "Verba exponenda sunt de æquali numero craterum et ollarum; ita vertit Jonathan : p. Nam quemadmodum plurimi erunt in domo Adonai pro sanguine spargendo crateres, (quando permulti erunt, qui sacrificabunt; etenim omnes, qui festum celebraturi venient, sacrificia offerent,) ita olla secundum offerentium numerum augebuntur." Such is the nature of this interpretation, that we wonder how several Christian interpreters (Vatablus, Drusius, Grotius) could have adopted it. That the multitude is the tertium comparationis is an entirely arbitrary assumption; on the contrary, holiness is plainly enough desig

in like manner מִזְרָקִים at לִפְנֵי הַמִּזְבֵּחַ nated as such, by the addition

as by the connexion with the foregoing, where the subject of discourse was holiness. Besides, the cooking pots must always have been comparatively far more numerous, than the bowls before the

altar, and we see not how the former could be compared with the latter, in order to represent their number as very great. Lastly, in the following verse also, as well as in the first portion of this, the discourse does not relate to the increase of the vessels of the temple, occasioned by the crowd of those who presented sacrifice, but to a conversion of all that is profane into what is holy. Ezekiel, chap. 43: 12, 45: 3, expresses by another image the same thought, the doing away of all degrees of difference among holy things. The whole mountain, upon which the new temple stands, will be the holiest of

V. 21. And every pot in Jerusalem and Judah will be holy to the Lord of Hosts, and all the offerers come and take therefrom, and offer therein, and there will be no more a Canaanite in the house of the Lord of Hosts in that day." As the pots in the temple will be all equally holy with the sacrificial bowls, so all pots in Jerusalem and Judah which heretofore were only clean, not holy, will be equally holy, as the pots in the temple. In the last words, several take?

ולא יהי עביד תגרא עוד בבית : in the sense merchant. Thus Jonathan

*pp" et non erit amplius exercens mercaturam in domo sanctuarii ;” so Aquila (who, after Jerome, translates mercator, uлoços), Abenezra, Kimchi, Abarbanel, Grotius; by far the majority of interpreters, however, take y, after the Seventy, as a gentile noun. And this interpretation, in comparison with the context and the parallel passages, is unconditionally to be preferred. When now the prophet says, that, at that time, there shall be no longer a Canaanite in the house of the Lord, it necessarily follows, that, at his time, Canaanites were found in the house of the Lord. For this reason alone, Canaanites, according to corporeal descent, cannot be intended; since the Gibeonites, whom several interpreters here mention, were not in the temple itself, from which all foreigners were kept at a distance with the greatest care. We have here rather an instance of the idiom, of frequent occurrence, whereby the ungodly members of the Theocracy themselves, in mockery of the arrogance founded on the outward participation of the same, are designated as heathen, or uncircumcised, or especially as Canaanites, or some other heathen people. Circumcision had the power of a seal of the covenant, only when the spiritual condition, typified by the outward action, actually existed; where this was not the case, the circumcision was considered void. As even the Pentateuch speaks of a circumcision of the heart, to which outward circumcision bound the Israelites, (comp. Deut. 10: 16, 30:

6,) so Jer. 4: 4, (" Circumcise your heart, and take away the foreskin of your heart, ye men of Judah, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem,”) and chap. 9:25 ("for all the heathen are uncircumcised, and the whole house of Israel are uncircumcised in heart,") designates the ungodly Israelites as uncircumcised in heart. Ezekiel goes a step farther. He designates, chap. 44: 9, the ungodly priests and Levites, not merely as uncircumcised in heart, but also in flesh, and as sons of the stranger. For that here, by the "uncircumcised," and the "sons of the stranger," not heathen properly, as most interpreters strangely enough assume, but the ungodly Levites are designated, appears, among other reasons, from the fact, that priestly actions, viz. the presenting of sacrifices, are attributed to these persons (comp. v. 7 with v. 15); farther from the D in v. 10, which, by these interpreters (comp. e. g. B. Rosenm.) is unphilologically translated, yea also, or moreover, instead of but; and lastly, from v. 15 and 16, where, to the threatening against the ungodly priests and Levites, contained in v. 7-14, the prediction of a reward for the pious is opposed. Similar also is Is. 52:1; "There shall no more come into thee one uncircumcised, and unclean." Gesenius there also takes "uncircumcised" in a figurative sense, see the proof in Vitringa. Examples of a designation of the ungodly by the name of one particular idolatrous people, distinguished by peculiar depth of moral depravity, are the following. Isaiah (chap. 1: 10) addresses the princes of Israel directly as princes of Sodom; the people, as people of Gomorrah. Zeph. 1 : 11, the destruction of the covenant people is announced by the words; "the whole people of Canaan shall be extirpated." The Chaldee paraphrases very correctly, "totus populus, cujus opera similia sunt operibus Cananæorum;" still there lies at the foundation, as is shown by what follows, an allusion to the import of the word merchant, which is too much magnified by Cölln (Spicil. in Zeph. p. 32.) The appeal to Ezek. 17: 4, can prove nothing, since there also certainly cannot be translated by merchant. Babylon was a second CaEzek. 16: 3, it is said, "Thus saith the Lord to Jerusalem; thine origin and thy descent are out of the land of the Canaanites, thy father is the Amorite, and thy mother a Hittite." Accordingly, the sense of the passage before us can no longer be doubtful. It is altogether parallel with such as Is. 4: 3, "Whosoever remains in Zion, and is left in Jerusalem, he will be called holy." 60: 21: "Thy people are all righteous." Apoc. 21: 27: Kai où un sisihin eis avτηy πᾶν κοινὸν, καὶ ποιοῦν βδέλυγμα καὶ ψεῦδος· εἰ μή οἱ γεγραμμένοι ἐν τῷ

naan.

βιβλίῳ τῆς ζωῆς τοῦ ἀρνίου. 22 : 15 : “ ἔξω οἱ κύνες καὶ οἱ φαρμακοὶ καὶ οἱ πόρνοι, καὶ οἱ φονεῖς, καὶ πᾶς ὁ φιλῶν καὶ ποιῶν ψεῦδος. The mixture of the pious and ungodly, as it existed in the church of the Old Testament, and as it in part still continues in that of the new, with this difference, nevertheless, that the dead members who joint hemselves to it have no sort of right in it, and participate in none of its blessings, all of which are received only through faith, is here contrasted with the perfect purity of the church in the last days, to be effected by the Lord.

THE SEVENTY WEEKS OF DANIEL.

CHAP. 9: v. 24 — 27.

GENERAL

VIEW.

:

DANIEL employs himself, in the first year of Darius the Mede, with Jeremiah, and his spirit is deeply moved, as he reads anew his wellknown prophecy, according to which, the affliction of the covenant people, their servitude, should endure seventy years, after which, their return, and the commencement of the rebuilding of the city and the temple connected therewith, should take place. The sixty-ninth year had now already arrived (comp. Beitr. I. p. 181, ff) The one chief object of the prophecies of Jeremiah (chap. 25-29), the overthrow of Babylon, had already happened; the belief in the truth of the divine prediction in reference to the others, which now approached with a rapid step, and whose germ already existed, had therefore, in the visible state of things, a ground of support. Daniel was far from doubting the divine promise. But the less he doubted, the more firmly he trusted the mercy of God, the deeper he understood the divine justice, (for even this required the fulfilment of the promise, when it had once been given), so much the more did he feel himself impelled to intercede for the people, the temple, and the city of the Lord. The true лaggŋoia in prayer to the Lord flows indeed from the conviction, that we pray xarà tò Jéhnμa avtou. The more definite the promise, the stronger the faith, and the more heartfelt the prayer. Daniel knew that the Lord would be supplicated for that, which he had already declared himself willing to give, (Jerome: in cinere et sacco postulat impleri quod promiserat deus, non quod esset incredulus futurorum, sed ne securitas negligentiam, et negligentia pareret offensam,) — as in the Psalms we constantly perceive, that the assurance of divine help, embraced with living faith, is always