Part I, Chapter 9

Of the kingdoms represented in Daniel by the Ram and He-Goat.

The second and third Empires, represented by the Bear and Leopard, are again represented by the Ram and He-Goat; but with this difference, that the Ram represents the kingdoms of the Medes and Persians from the beginning of the four Empires, and the Goat represents the kingdom of the Greeks to the end of them. By this means, under the figure of the Ram and He-Goat, the times of all four Empires are described once more: "I lifted up my eyes," said¹ Daniel, "and looked, and there stood before the river [Ulai] a Ram with two horns; and the two horns were high, but one was higher than the other, and the higher came up last." "And the Ram with two horns are the kings of Media and Persia": not two persons but two kingdoms, the kingdoms of Media and Persia; and the kingdom of Persia was the higher horn and came up last. The kingdom of Persia rose when Cyrus, having newly conquered Babylon, revolted from Darius King of the Medes, defeated him at Pasargadæ, and set up the Persians above the Medes. This was the horn that came up last. The horn that came up first was the kingdom of the Medes, from the time that Cyaxares and Nebuchadnezzar overthrew Nineveh and divided the Empire of the Assyrians between them. The Empires of Media and Babylon were contemporary, and rose up together with the fall of the Assyrian Empire; and the Prophecy of the four Beasts begins with one of them, and that of the Ram and He-Goat with the other. As the Ram represents the kingdom of Media and Persia from the beginning of the four Empires, so the He-Goat represents the Empire of the Greeks to the end of those Monarchies. In the reign of his great horn, and of the four horns that succeeded it, he represents this Empire during the reign of the Leopard; and in the reign of his little horn, which stood up in the latter time of the kingdom of the four, and after their fall became mighty but not by his own power, he represents it during the reign of the fourth Beast.

"The rough Goat," said Daniel, "is the King of Grecia": that is, the kingdom; and the great horn between his eyes is the first King: not the first Monarch, but the first kingdom, that which lasted during the reign of Alexander the great, and his brother Aridæus and two young sons, Alexander and Hercules.² "Now that [horn] being broken off, while four [horns] stood up in its place, four kingdoms shall stand up out of the nation [of the Greeks], but not with his [the first horn's] power." The four horns are therefore four kingdoms; and by consequence the first great horn which they succeeded is the first great kingdom of the Greeks, that which was founded by Alexander the great, An. Nabonass. 414, and lasted till the death of his son Hercules, An. Nabonass. 441. And the four are those of Cassander, Lysimachus, Antigonus, and Ptolemy, as above.

3 "And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a King [or new kingdom] of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall stand up; and his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power." This King was the last horn of the Goat, the little horn that came up out of one of the four horns and grew exceedingly great. The latter time of their kingdom was when the Romans began to conquer them, that is, when they conquered Perseus King of Macedonia, the fundamental kingdom of the Greeks. And at that time the transgressors came to the full: for then the high priesthood was put up for sale, and the vessels of the Temple were sold to pay for the purchase; and the high priest, with some of the Jews, obtained a license from Antiochus Epiphanes to follow the ordinances of the heathen, and set up a school at Jerusalem for teaching those ordinances. Then Antiochus took Jerusalem with an armed force, killed 4000 Jews, took as many prisoners and sold them, plundered the Temple, forbade the worship, commanded the Law of Moses to be burned, and set up the worship of the heathen Gods in all Judea. In that very same year, An. Nabonass. 580, the Romans conquered Macedonia, the chief of the four horns. Until then the Goat was mighty by its own power, but from then on it began to be under the Romans. Daniel distinguishes the times by describing in detail the actions of the kings of the north and the south, those two of the four horns that bordered on Judea, until the Romans conquered Macedonia; and from then on touching only upon the main revolutions that happened within the compass of the nations represented by the Goat. In this latter period of time the little horn was to stand up and grow mighty, but not by its own power.

The first three of Daniel's Beasts had their dominions taken away, each of them at the rise of the next Beast; but their lives were prolonged, and all of them are still alive. The third Beast, or Leopard, reigned in his four heads till the rise of the fourth Beast, or Empire of the Latins; and his life was prolonged under their power. This Leopard reigning in his four heads means the same thing as the He-Goat reigning in his four horns: and therefore the He-Goat reigned in his four horns till the rise of Daniel's fourth Beast, or Empire of the Latins; then its dominion was taken away by the Latins, but its life was prolonged under their power. The Latins are not counted among the nations represented by the He-Goat in this Prophecy: their power over the Greeks is named in it only to distinguish the times in which the He-Goat was mighty by his own power from the times in which he was mighty but not by his own power. He was mighty by his own power till his dominion was taken away by the Latins; after that his life was prolonged under their dominion, and this prolonging of his life was in the days of his last horn: for in the days of this horn the Goat became mighty, but not by his own power.

Now because this horn was a horn of the Goat, we are to look for it among the nations that made up the body of the Goat. Among those nations it was to rise up and grow mighty: it grew mighty⁴ towards the south, and towards the east, and towards the pleasant land; and therefore it was to rise up in the northwestern parts of those nations, and extend its dominion towards Egypt, Syria and Judea. In the latter time of the kingdom of the four horns, it was to rise up out of one of them and subdue the rest, but not by its own power. It was to be assisted by a foreign power, a power superior to itself: the power that took away the dominion of the third Beast, the power of the fourth Beast. And such a little horn was the kingdom of Macedonia, from the time that it became subject to the Romans. This kingdom, by the victory of the Romans over Persius King of Macedonia, Anno Nabonass. 580, ceased to be one of the four horns of the Goat, and became a dominion of a new kind: not a horn of the fourth Beast, for Macedonia belonged to the body of the third; but a horn of the third Beast of a new kind, a horn of the Goat that grew mighty but not by his own power, a horn that rose up and grew powerful under a foreign power, the power of the Romans.

The Romans, by the legacy of Attalus the last King of Pergamus, An. Nabonass. 615, inherited that kingdom, including all Asia Minor on this side of mount Taurus. An. Nabonass. 684 and 685 they conquered Armenia, Syria and Judea; An. Nabonass. 718, they subdued Egypt. And by these conquests the little horn⁵ grew exceedingly great towards the south, and towards the east, and towards the pleasant land. "And it grew great even to the host of heaven; and it cast down some of the host and of the stars to the ground, and trampled on them," that is, on the people and great men of the Jews.⁶ "Yes, he magnified himself even to the Prince of the Host, the Messiah, the Prince of the Jews, whom he put to death," An. Nabonass. 780. "And by him the daily sacrifice was taken away, and the place of his sanctuary was cast down"; that is, in the wars which the armies of the eastern nations, under the conduct of the Romans, waged against Judea while Nero and Vespasian were Emperors, An. Nabonass. 816, 817, 818.⁷ "And an army was given him against the daily sacrifice because of transgression, and it cast down the truth to the ground, and it plotted and prospered." This transgression is called in the next words the transgression of desolation; and in Dan. xi. 31. the abomination which makes desolate; and in Matth. xxiv. 15. the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place. It may relate chiefly to the worship of Jupiter Olympius in his Temple built by the Emperor Hadrian, in the place of the Temple of the Jews, and to the revolt of the Jews under Barchochab that this caused, and to the desolation of Judea that followed; all the Jews being from then on banished from Judea on pain of death. "Then I heard," said⁸ Daniel, "one saint speaking, and another saint said to that saint who spoke, 'How long shall the vision concerning the daily sacrifice, and the transgression of desolation, last, so that both the sanctuary and the host are trampled under foot?' And he said to me, 'For two thousand and three hundred days; then the sanctuary shall be cleansed.'" Daniel's days are years; and these years may perhaps be counted either from the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in the reign of Vespasian, or from the pollution of the Sanctuary by the worship of Jupiter Olympius, or from the desolation of Judea at the end of the Jewish war, when all the Jews were banished from their own country, or from some other period that time will reveal. From then on the last horn of the Goat continued mighty under the Romans, till the reign of Constantine the great and his sons; and then, with the division of the Roman Empire between the Greek and Latin Emperors, it separated from the Latins and became the Greek Empire alone, though still under the dominion of a Roman family; and at present it is mighty under the dominion of the Turks.

This last horn is taken by some for Antiochus Epiphanes, but not very judiciously. A horn of a Beast is never taken for a single person: it always signifies a new kingdom, and the kingdom of Antiochus was an old one. Antiochus reigned over one of the four horns, and the little horn was a fifth under its proper kings. This horn was at first a little one and grew exceedingly great, but Antiochus did not. It is described as great above all the former horns, and Antiochus was not. His kingdom, on the contrary, was weak and tributary to the Romans, and he did not enlarge it. The horn was a King of fierce countenance, and destroyed wonderfully, and prospered and plotted; that is, he prospered in his plots against the holy people; but Antiochus was frightened out of Egypt by a mere message from the Romans, and afterward routed and baffled by the Jews. The horn was mighty by another's power, Antiochus acted by his own. The horn stood up against the Prince of the Host of heaven, the Prince of Princes; and this is the character not of Antiochus but of Antichrist. The horn cast down the Sanctuary to the ground, and so did not Antiochus; he left it standing. The Sanctuary and Host were trampled under foot 2300 days; and in Daniel's Prophecies days are put for years: but the profanation of the Temple in the reign of Antiochus did not last so many natural days. They were to last till the time of the end, till the last end of the indignation against the Jews; and this indignation is not yet at an end. They were to last till the Sanctuary which had been cast down should be cleansed, and the Sanctuary is not yet cleansed.

This Prophecy of the Ram and He-Goat is repeated in the last Prophecy of Daniel. There the Angel tells Daniel that⁹ he stood up to strengthen Darius the Mede, and that there should stand up yet three kings in Persia, [Cyrus, Cambyses, and Darius Hystaspis] and the fourth [Xerxes] should be far richer than they all; and by his wealth through his riches he should stir up all against the realm of Grecia. This relates to the Ram, whose two horns were the kingdoms of Media and Persia. Then he goes on to describe the horns of the Goat by the¹⁰ standing up of a mighty king, which should rule with great dominion and do according to his will; and by the breaking of his kingdom into four smaller kingdoms, and not passing to his own posterity. Then he describes the actions of two of those kingdoms which bordered on Judea, that is, Egypt and Syria, calling them the Kings of the South and North, that is, in respect of Judea; and he carries on the description till the latter end of the kingdoms of the four, and till the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes, when transgressors were come to the full. In the eighth year of Antiochus, the year in which he profaned the Temple and set up the heathen Gods in all Judea, and the Romans conquered the kingdom of Macedon, the prophetic Angel stops describing the affairs of the kings of the South and North, and begins to describe those of the Greeks under the dominion of the Romans, in these words:¹¹ "And after him Arms [the Romans] shall stand up, and they shall pollute the sanctuary of strength." As [Hebrew: MMLK] signifies after the king, Dan. xi. 8; so here [Hebrew: MMNW] may signify after him: and so [Hebrew: MN-H'CHT] may signify after one of them, Dan. viii. 9. Arms are everywhere in these Prophecies of Daniel put for the military power of a kingdom, and they stand up when they conquer and grow powerful. The Romans conquered Illyricum, Epirus and Macedonia, in the year of Nabonassar 580; and thirty-five years after, by the last will and testament of Attalus the last King of Pergamus, they inherited that rich and flourishing kingdom, that is, all Asia on this side of mount Taurus: and sixty-nine years after, they conquered the kingdom of Syria and reduced it to a Province: and thirty-four years after they did the same to Egypt. By all these steps the Roman arms stood up over the Greeks. And after 95 years more, by making war upon the Jews, they polluted the sanctuary of strength, and took away the daily sacrifice, and soon after, in its place, set up the abomination which made the Land desolate: for this abomination was set up after the days of Christ, Matth. xxiv. 15. In the 16th year of the Emperor Hadrian, A. C. 132, they set up this abomination by building a Temple to Jupiter Capitolinus, where the Temple of God in Jerusalem had stood. After that the Jews, under the conduct of Barchochab, rose up in arms against the Romans, and in that war had 50 cities demolished, 985 of their best towns destroyed, and 580000 men killed by the sword: and at the end of the war, A.C. 136, they were all banished from Judea on pain of death; and since that time the land has remained desolate of its old inhabitants.

Now that the prophetic Angel passes in this way from the four kingdoms of the Greeks to the Romans reigning over the Greeks, is confirmed by this: that next he describes the affairs of the Christians until the time of the end, in these words:¹² "And those who understand among the people shall instruct many, yet they shall fall by the sword and by flame, by captivity and by spoil for many days. Now when they shall fall they shall be helped with a little help," that is, in the reign of Constantine the great; "but many shall side with them in pretense. And some of them that have understanding shall fall, to test them, and to purge them of the dissemblers; and to make them white until the time of the end." And a little after, the time of the end is called a time, times, and half a time: which is the duration of the reign of the last horn of Daniel's fourth Beast, and of the Woman and her Beast in the Apocalypse.

Notes to Chap. IX.

1 Chap. viii. 3.

2 Ver. 22.

3 Ver. 23.

4 Chap. viii. 9.

5 Chap. viii. 9, 10.

6 Ver. 11.

7 Ver. 12.

8 Ver. 13, 14.

9 Dan. xi. 1, 2.

10 Ver. 3.

11 Dan xi. 31.

12 Chap. xi. 33, &c.

Of the kingdoms represented in Daniel by the Ram and He-Goat.

The Bear and the Leopard stand for the second and third Empires. The Ram and the He-Goat stand for them again, but with a difference: the Ram stands for the kingdoms of the Medes and Persians from the beginning of the four Empires, and the Goat stands for the kingdom of the Greeks to their end. In this way, under the image of the Ram and the He-Goat, the times of all four Empires are described a second time. "I lifted up my eyes," says¹ Daniel, "and looked. There, in front of the river [Ulai], stood a Ram with two horns. Both horns were tall, but one was taller than the other, and the taller one came up last." The Ram with two horns means the kings of Media and Persia: not two persons but two kingdoms, the kingdoms of Media and Persia. The kingdom of Persia was the taller horn, and it came up last. Persia rose when Cyrus, just after conquering Babylon, rebelled against Darius, king of the Medes, beat him at Pasargadæ, and set the Persians above the Medes. That was the horn that came up last. The horn that came up first was the kingdom of the Medes, from the time that Cyaxares and Nebuchadnezzar overthrew Nineveh and shared the Empire of the Assyrians between them. The Empires of Media and Babylon existed at the same time, and both rose with the fall of the Assyrian Empire. The Prophecy of the four Beasts begins with one of them, and the Prophecy of the Ram and He-Goat with the other. As the Ram stands for the kingdom of Media and Persia from the beginning of the four Empires, so the He-Goat stands for the Empire of the Greeks to the end of those monarchies. While his great horn ruled, and then the four horns that followed it, he stands for this Empire during the reign of the Leopard. While his little horn ruled, one that rose in the latter time of the kingdom of the four and became mighty after their fall but not by its own power, he stands for it during the reign of the fourth Beast.

Daniel says the shaggy Goat is the King of Grecia; that is, the kingdom. The large horn between his eyes is the first King: not the first monarch, but the first kingdom, the one that lasted through the reign of Alexander the Great, his brother Aridæus, and Alexander's two young sons, Alexander and Hercules.² Once that [horn] was broken, four [horns] rose in its place, and four kingdoms would stand up out of the nation [of the Greeks], but not with his [the first horn's] power. So the four horns are four kingdoms, and the first large horn they replaced is the first great kingdom of the Greeks: the one founded by Alexander the Great in the year of Nabonassar 414, which lasted until his son Hercules died in the year of Nabonassar 441. Those four are the kingdoms of Cassander, Lysimachus, Antigonus, and Ptolemy, as noted above.

3 In the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors have reached the full, a King [or new kingdom] with a fierce face, who understands riddles, will stand up. His power will be mighty, but not by his own power. This King was the last horn of the Goat: the little horn that came up out of one of the four horns and grew very great. The latter time of their kingdom was when the Romans began to conquer them, that is, when they conquered Perseus, King of Macedonia, the fundamental kingdom of the Greeks. The transgressors reached the full at that time, because the High-priesthood was then put up for sale and the Vessels of the Temple were sold to pay for the purchase. The High-priest, with some of the Jews, got permission from Antiochus Epiphanes to follow the practices of the heathen and set up a school at Jerusalem to teach them. Then Antiochus took Jerusalem by force, killed 4000 Jews, took as many prisoners and sold them, plundered the Temple, banned its worship, ordered the Law of Moses to be burned, and set up the worship of the heathen Gods in all Judea. In that very same year, in the year of Nabonassar 580, the Romans conquered Macedonia, the chief of the four horns. Until then the Goat was mighty by its own power; after that it began to be under the Romans. Daniel tells the times apart by describing in detail the deeds of the Kings of the north and south, those two of the four horns that bordered Judea, until the Romans conquered Macedonia. After that he touches only on the main changes that took place among the nations represented by the Goat. In this later period the little horn was to stand up and grow mighty, but not by its own power.

The first three of Daniel's Beasts lost their dominions, each when the next Beast rose, but their lives were extended, and all of them are still alive. The third Beast, or Leopard, ruled in its four heads until the fourth Beast, or Empire of the Latins, rose, and its life was extended under their power. The Leopard ruling in its four heads means the same thing as the He-Goat ruling in its four horns. So the He-Goat ruled in its four horns until Daniel's fourth Beast, or Empire of the Latins, rose. Then the Latins took away its dominion, but its life was extended under their power. The Latins are not counted among the nations represented by the He-Goat in this Prophecy. Their power over the Greeks is named only to tell apart the times when the He-Goat was mighty by its own power from the times when it was mighty, but not by its own power. It was mighty by its own power until the Latins took away its dominion. After that its life was extended under their rule, and this extension of its life came in the days of its last horn. In the days of that horn the Goat became mighty, but not by its own power.

Because this horn was a horn of the Goat, we should look for it among the nations that made up the body of the Goat. Among those nations it was to rise up and grow mighty. It grew mighty⁴ toward the south, toward the east, and toward the pleasant land, so it was to rise up in the northwestern parts of those nations and spread its dominion toward Egypt, Syria, and Judea. In the latter time of the kingdom of the four horns it was to rise up out of one of them and subdue the rest, but not by its own power. A foreign power was to help it, a power greater than itself: the power that took away the dominion of the third Beast, the power of the fourth Beast. The kingdom of Macedonia was just such a little horn, from the time it became subject to the Romans. By their victory over Persius, King of Macedonia, in the year of Nabonassar 580, this kingdom stopped being one of the four horns of the Goat and became a dominion of a new kind: not a horn of the fourth Beast, because Macedonia belonged to the body of the third Beast; but a new kind of horn of the third Beast, a horn of the Goat that grew mighty but not by its own power, a horn that rose up and grew strong under a foreign power, the power of the Romans.

Through the will of Attalus, the last King of Pergamus, the Romans inherited that kingdom in the year of Nabonassar 615, including all Asia Minor on this side of mount Taurus. In the years of Nabonassar 684 and 685 they conquered Armenia, Syria, and Judea; in the year of Nabonassar 718 they subdued Egypt. With these conquests the little horn⁵ grew very great toward the south, toward the east, and toward the pleasant land. It grew great even to the host of heaven, and threw some of the host and of the stars to the ground and stamped on them, that is, on the people and great men of the Jews.⁶ It exalted itself even to the Prince of the Host: the Messiah, the Prince of the Jews, whom it put to death in the year of Nabonassar 780. Through it the daily sacrifice was taken away and the place of its sanctuary thrown down: that is, in the wars that the armies of the Eastern nations, led by the Romans, waged against Judea while Nero and Vespasian were Emperors, in the years of Nabonassar 816, 817, and 818.⁷ A host was given to it to oppose the daily sacrifice because of transgression. It threw the truth to the ground and carried out its plans and prospered. This transgression is called in the next words the transgression of desolation; in Dan. xi. 31 it is the abomination which makes desolate; and in Matth. xxiv. 15 it is the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place. It may relate most of all to the worship of Jupiter Olympius in the temple that the Emperor Hadrian built in place of the Temple of the Jews, to the revolt of the Jews under Barchochab that this brought about, and to the desolation of Judea that followed. All the Jews were then banished from Judea on pain of death.⁸ "Then I heard," says Daniel, "one saint speaking. Another saint said to the saint who was speaking, 'How long shall the vision about the daily sacrifice and the transgression of desolation last, so that both the sanctuary and the host are trampled underfoot?' And he said to me, 'For two thousand and three hundred days. Then the sanctuary will be cleansed.'" Daniel's days are years, and these years may be counted either from the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in the reign of Vespasian, or from the pollution of the Sanctuary by the worship of Jupiter Olympius, or from the desolation of Judea at the end of the Jewish war, when all the Jews were banished from their own country, or from some other starting point that time will reveal. From then on the last horn of the Goat stayed mighty under the Romans until the reign of Constantine the Great and his sons. Then the Roman Empire was divided between the Greek and Latin Emperors, and the horn separated from the Latins and became the Greek Empire alone, still under the rule of a Roman family. Today it is mighty under the rule of the Turks.

Some take this last horn for Antiochus Epiphanes, but that is not very sensible. A horn of a Beast never stands for a single person; it always means a new kingdom, and the kingdom of Antiochus was an old one. Antiochus ruled one of the four horns, and the little horn was a fifth kingdom with its own kings. This horn was small at first and then grew very great, but Antiochus did not. It is described as greater than all the former horns, and Antiochus was not. His kingdom, on the contrary, was weak and paid tribute to the Romans, and he did not make it larger. The horn was a King of fierce face who destroyed in astonishing ways, and succeeded and carried out his plans: in other words, he succeeded in his plots against the holy people. But Antiochus was scared out of Egypt by a mere message from the Romans, and later he was beaten and outwitted by the Jews. The horn was mighty by another's power; Antiochus acted by his own. The horn stood up against the Prince of the Host of heaven, the Prince of Princes, and this describes not Antiochus but Antichrist. The horn threw the Sanctuary to the ground; Antiochus did not, he left it standing. The Sanctuary and the Host were trampled underfoot for 2300 days, and in Daniel's Prophecies days stand for years. But the defilement of the Temple in the reign of Antiochus did not last that many actual days. They were to last until the time of the end, until the last end of the anger against the Jews, and that anger is not yet over. They were to last until the Sanctuary that had been thrown down was cleansed, and the Sanctuary is not yet cleansed.

This Prophecy of the Ram and He-Goat is repeated in the last Prophecy of Daniel. There the Angel tells Daniel that⁹ he stood up to strengthen Darius the Mede, and that three more kings would stand up in Persia, [Cyrus, Cambyses, and Darius Hystaspis], and that the fourth [Xerxes] would be far richer than all of them. Through his great riches he would stir up everyone against the realm of Grecia. This concerns the Ram, whose two horns were the kingdoms of Media and Persia. Then the Angel goes on to describe the horns of the Goat: first by the¹⁰ rising of a mighty king who would rule with great dominion and do as he pleased, and then by the breaking of his kingdom into four smaller kingdoms that did not pass to his own descendants. Next he describes what two of those kingdoms did, Egypt and Syria, which bordered on Judea. He calls them the Kings of the South and North, that is, south and north in relation to Judea. He carries the description on to the later end of the kingdoms of the four, and to the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes, when the transgressors had reached the full. In the eighth year of Antiochus, the year in which he defiled the Temple and set up the heathen Gods in all Judea, and the Romans conquered the kingdom of Macedon, the prophetic Angel stops describing the affairs of the kings of the South and North. He begins to describe those of the Greeks under the rule of the Romans, in these words:¹¹ "And after him Arms [the Romans] shall stand up, and they shall pollute the sanctuary of strength." As [Hebrew: MMLK] signifies "after the king" in Dan. xi. 8, so here [Hebrew: MMNW] may signify "after him", and [Hebrew: MN-H'CHT] may signify "after one of them" in Dan. viii. 9. In these Prophecies of Daniel, Arms stand everywhere for the military power of a kingdom, and they stand up when they conquer and grow powerful. The Romans conquered Illyricum, Epirus, and Macedonia in the year of Nabonassar 580. Thirty five years later, by the last will and testament of Attalus, the last King of Pergamus, they inherited that rich and prosperous kingdom, that is, all Asia on this side of mount Taurus. Sixty nine years after that they conquered the kingdom of Syria and made it a Province. Thirty four years after that they did the same to Egypt. With all these steps the Roman arms rose up over the Greeks. And 95 years after that, by making war on the Jews, they polluted the sanctuary of strength and took away the daily sacrifice. Soon afterward, in its place, they set up the abomination that made the Land desolate; for this abomination was set up after the days of Christ, Matth. xxiv. 15. In the 16th year of the Emperor Hadrian, in the year of Christ 132, they set up this abomination by building a Temple to Jupiter Capitolinus where the Temple of God in Jerusalem had stood. Then the Jews, led by Barchochab, rose up in arms against the Romans. In that war 50 cities were demolished, 985 of their best towns destroyed, and 580000 men killed by the sword. At the end of the war, in the year of Christ 136, they were all banished from Judea on pain of death, and since that time the land has remained desolate of its old inhabitants.

That the prophetic Angel passes in this way from the four kingdoms of the Greeks to the Romans ruling over the Greeks is confirmed by what comes next: he describes the affairs of the Christians up to the time of the end, in these words:¹² "And those who understand among the people will teach many. Yet they will fall by the sword and by flame, by captivity and by spoil, for many days. When they fall they will be helped with a little help"—that is, in the reign of Constantine the Great—"but many will hold on to them only in pretense. And some of them who understand will fall, to test them, to purge them of the pretenders, and to make them pure until the time of the end." A little later, the time of the end is called a time, times, and half a time. That is the length of the reign of the last horn of Daniel's fourth Beast, and of the Woman and her Beast in the Apocalyps.

Notes to Chap. IX.

1 Chap. viii. 3.

2 Ver. 22.

3 Ver. 23.

4 Chap. viii. 9.

5 Chap. viii. 9, 10.

6 Ver. 11.

7 Ver. 12.

8 Ver. 13, 14.

9 Dan. xi. 1, 2.

10 Ver. 3.

11 Dan xi. 31.

12 Chap. xi. 33, etc.