stead of being that upon which all are agreed, scarcely two commentators can be found of the same opinion regarding it. We are taunted, moreover, by the Jews, with our differences and difficulties on the subject and while we look upon it as affording a convincing argument against their erroneous opinions regarding the Messiah, our disputes as to the true interpretation are even turned against us, with some degree of plausibility, as a proof that Jesus of Nazareth could not be that Messiah (2).

Whether it may have been the purpose of Divine Providence, that ambiguity and obscurity should pervade that part of the history of the Jews from which the explanation of this prophecy must be drawn, lest seeing they might see and understand, it is not for us to determine: certain however it is, that after the return from the Babylonish captivity, events proved most adverse to the keeping of any correct history or reckoning of the period between

that return and the birth of our Saviour. From the time of Cyrus to the completion of the wall of Jerusalem by Nehemiah, a period of more than ninety years, the tenure of that city and the Holy Land seems to have been of a very imperfect and precarious nature; and from which of the several decrees found in Scripture, relative to the rebuilding either of the city or temple, considering the constant interruptions in the work, they were to date the commencement of their new æra, they had no more guide than we have in the present day. During their subjection to Persia, they seem to have attempted loosely to date events by the years of the Persian princes*, with whom, however, in progress of time, they became almost entirely disconnected. With Alexander the Great we know that a new computation was introduced, viz. the Era of Contracts (3). And in the reign of Antiochus

See the books of Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai, and Zechariah.

Epiphanes a persecution took place, with the express object of rooting out the Jewish religion, during which the sacred books and records were searched for and destroyed, and at which time much of their history, between the time of Cyrus and Antiochus, now wanting, may probably have been lost. The book of Ezra itself, which some suppose not then to have been included in the Canon, may possibly have suffered during this persecution.

The result was, that so uncertain were the Jews in their reckoning, that they had fixed no precise point of time at which the Messiah was to make his appearance. And though it is true, that a general expectation of the rise of some great prince was prevalent in the East about the time of the birth of our Saviour, yet that expectation had existed even before (4) the commencement of Herod's reign (who was himself supposed by some to be the prince *Josephus, Antiq. 1. 12. ch. v. 4.

foretold), and continued till the end of the Jewish war, a period of more than a hundred years. So little also was there of precision in their chronology, particularly since the captivity, that when in the second century they became desirous of extending the time for the appearance of the Messiah, they not only succeeded in striking out two hundred and forty years from the æra of the world, but of these the greatest portion are deducted from the duration of the Persian monarchy, which they reduced to fifty-two years

*

This uncertainty in the Jewish chronology, added to the dissimilarity of some of the names used in sacred, as compared with profane, history, with reference to the dynasty of Persia, has occasioned much perplexity to writers upon this prophecy, and will sufficiently account for

* Chronologia Sacra Profana. R. David: Gantz. in anno 3442. p. 57. Whiston on the Old Testament, p. 228.

the latitude which we shall find they have taken in commenting upon it.

I

There is however a guide, in the obscurity of that part of the Jewish history which affects our subject, which I think has perhaps been too lightly set aside. mean the first apocryphal book of Esdras. This book contains a duplicate of the book of Ezra, under a different arrangement of the second, third, and to the fifth verse of the fourth chapters, with the addition of an account of a return of captives from Babylon to Jerusalem, between the reigns of Cyrus and Artaxerxes Longimanus, not contained in the canonical book; and also a very important decree, issued by a king called Darius, for the restoration of the city of Jerusalem, which in my opinion affords the means of more perfectly comprehending this prophecy, as well as the history of the period. This book is found in the Septuagint, and early Latin translation of the Bible; it has been quoted by Origen, Cyprian, Athanasius,