Ft1 Cut upon. A phrase in Hebrew, taken from the practice of numbering by cutting notches.

Ft2 Hebrews to seal, i.e. to finish or consummate: a metaphor taken from sealing what is finished. So the Jews compute, ad obsignatum Misna, ad obsignatum Talmud, that is, ad absolutum.

Ft3 Hebrews the Prophet, not the Prophecy.

Ft4 Hebrews the Messiah, that is, in Greek, the Christ; in English, the Anointed. I use the English word, that the relation of this clause to the former may appear.

Ft5 Jerusalem. with a flood, and unto the end of the war, desolations are determined. “Yet shall he confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in half a week he shall cause the sacrifice and oblation to cease: and upon a wing of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that which is determined be poured upon the desolate.” The ancient solar years of the eastern nations consisted of 12 months, and every month of 30 days: and hence came the division of a circle into 360 degrees. This year seems to be used by Moses in his history of the Flood, and by John in the Apocalypse, where a time, times and half a time, 42 months and 1260 days, are put equipollent. But in reckoning by many of these years together, an account is to be kept of the odd days which were added to the end of these years. For the Egyptians added five days to the end of this year; and so did the Chaldeans long before the times of Daniel, as appears by the AEra of Nabonassar: and the Persian Magi used the same year of 365 days, till the Empire of the Arabians. The ancient Greeks also used the same solar year of 12 equal months, or 360 days; but every other year added an intercalary month, consisting of 10 and 11 days alternately.

The year of the Jews, even from their coming out of Egypt, was Lunisolar.

It was solar, for the harvest always followed the Passover, and the fruits of the land were always gathered before the feast of Tabernacles, Leviticus 23. But the months were lunar, for the people were commanded by Moses in the beginning of every month to blow with trumpets, and offer burnt offerings with their drink offerings, Numbers 10:10, Numbers 28:11,14; and this solemnity was kept on the new moons, Psalm 81:3,4,5. 1 Chronicles 23:31. These months were called by Moses the first, second, third, fourth month, &c. and the first month was also called Abib, the second Zif, the seventh Ethanim, the eighth Bull, Exodus 13:4. 1 Kings 6:37,38; 1 Kings 8:2. But in the Babylonian captivity the Jews used the names of the Chaldean months, and by those names understood the months of their own year; so that the Jewish months then lost their old names, and are now called by those of the Chaldeans.

The Jews began their civil year from the autumnal Equinox, and their sacred year from the vernal: and the first day of the first month was on the visible new moon, which was nearest the Equinox.

Whether Daniel used the Chaldaic or Jewish year, is not very material; the difference being but six hours in a year, and 4 months in 480 years.

But I take his months to be Jewish: first, because Daniel was a Jew, and the Jews even by the names of the Chaldean months understood the months of their own year: secondly, because this Prophecy is grounded on Jeremiah’s concerning the 70 years captivity, and therefore must be understood of the same sort of years with the seventy; and those are Jewish, since that Prophecy was given in Judea before the captivity: and lastly, because Daniel reckons by weeks of years, which is a way of reckoning peculiar to the Jewish years. For as their days ran by sevens, and the last day of every seven was a sabbath; so their years ran by sevens, and the last year of every seven was a sabbatical year, and seven such weeks of years made a Jubilee.

Ft7 I observe, that Christ and his forerunner John in their parabolical discourses were wont to allude to things present. The old Prophets, when they would describe things emphatically, did not only draw parables from things which offered themselves, as from the rent of a garment, 1 Samuel 15; from the sabbatic year, Isaiah 37; from the vessels of a Potter, Jeremiah 18, &c. but also when such fit objects were wanting, they supplied them by their own actions, as by rending a garment, 1 Kings 11; by shooting, 2 Kings 13; by making bare their body, Isaiah 20; by imposing significant names to their sons, Isaiah 8; Hosea 1; by hiding a girdle in the bank of Euphrates, Jeremiah 13; by breaking a potter’s vessel, Jeremiah xix; by putting on fetters and yokes, Jeremiah xxvii; by binding a book to a stone, and casting them both into Euphrates, Jeremiah 51; by besieging a painted city, Ezekiel 4; by dividing hair into three parts, Ezekiel 5; by making a chain, Ezekiel 7; by carrying out household stuff like a captive and trembling, Ezekiel 12, &c. By such kind of types the prophets loved to speak. And Christ being endued with a nobler prophetic spirit than the rest, excelled also in this kind of speaking, yet so as not to speak by his own actions, that was less grave and decent, but to turn into parables such things as offered themselves. On occasion of the harvest approaching, he admonishes his disciples once and again of the spiritual harvest, John 4:35; Matthew 9:37. Seeing the lilies of the field, he admonishes his disciples about gay clothing, Matthew 6:28. In allusion to the present season of fruits, he admonishes his disciples about knowing men by their fruits, Matthew 7:16. In the time of the Passover, when trees put forth leaves, he bids his disciples learn a parable from the fig tree: when its branch is yet tender and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh , &c. Matthew 24:32; Luke 21:29. The same day, alluding both to the season of the year and to his passion, which was to be two days after, he formed a parable of the time of fruits approaching, and the murdering of the heir, Matthew 21:53. Alluding at the same time, both to the money-changers whom he had newly driven out of the Temple, and to his passion at hand; he made a parable of a Noble-man going into a far country to receive a kingdom and return, and delivering his goods to his servants, and at his return condemning the slothful servant because he put not his money to the exchangers, Matthew 25:14; Luke 19:12. Being near the Temple where sheep were kept in folds to be sold for the sacrifices, he spake many things parabolically of sheep, of the shepherd, and of the door to the sheepfold; and discovers that he alluded to the sheepfolds which were to be hired in the market-place, by speaking of such folds as a thief could not enter by the door, nor the shepherd himself open, but a porter opened to the shepherd, John 10:1,3. Being in the mount of Olives, Matthew 36:30; John 14:31; a place so fertile that it could not want vines, he spake many things mystically of the Husbandman, and of the vine and its branches, John 15:Meeting a blind man, he admonished of spiritual blindness, John 9:39. At the sight of little children, he described once and again the innocence of the elect, Matthew 18:2; Matthew 19:13. Knowing that Lazarus was dead and should be raised again, he discoursed of the resurrection and life eternal, John 11:25,26.