VII.—The Time of the End (continued)
Now we come to that verse of deep significance, the 27th. “He shall confirm a covenant with the many for one week.” The pronoun, of course, refers to the last person mentioned, “the prince that shall come"; that is, of the Roman people. It is needless to say that this covenanting of a Roman prince with the Jewish people is an event yet future. No Roman prince has yet made such a covenant; nor has that people been in a position to reciprocate, since the destruction of Jerusalem and their scattering over the face of the earth. Here, however, we have the last week of the seventy. The expression “the many” means the majority of the nation, in contrast with the godly remnant already placed before the reader. At the time of the end, therefore, there are to be dealings between the Roman Empire and the mass of the people of Israel, and we have already seen the prominence of Israel in the latter day.
Events of current history help us to understand this. Who has not noticed the great stir of late amongst the Jews? What means the “Zionist movement” but the incipience of a corporate and national activity? Is it not a budding of something that will yet bear fruit? In ver. 27 we see a covenant with the mass of Israel which a Roman prince is to confirm for a hebdomad. This has generally been taken to mean that he shall make a firm covenant; but there seems no reason why the phrase should not be understood in its simple sense of confirming a covenant already made. Indeed, the latter sense would coincide with the general tenor of prophecy as regards Israel, for, near the close of the age, we find Israel having a national and religio-political existence; their land restored to them, and the temple rebuilt. When one considers their present position as foretold by Hosea, viz., that “the children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an epod, and without teraphim” (chap. 3:4); when we see them persecuted, barely tolerated, exiled through centuries from their own land; and their highest ambition to gain equality with Gentiles; when we find all this reversed, and that they are in a position to make a treaty with the head of the Roman Empire, it is obvious that a vast political change must have occurred as regards that people.
If, however, scripture shows that some great power will take up the case of Israel, sending ambassadors to them, it becomes easy to understand that when the Roman prince of Daniel 9 comes upon the scene, he might find a treaty or covenant with Israel in existence which it would be to his interest not to set aside, but to confirm.
Strikingly apposite to this is the 18th chapter of Isaiah. The Authorized Version of this chapter is preferable to the Revised, which latter appears to have got further away from the sense of the original. The following is the corrected rendering of the late Mr. J. N. Darby— “Ha! land shadowing with wings, which art beyond the rivers of Cush, that sendest ambassadors over the sea, and in vessels of papyrus upon the waters, [saying, Go, swift messengers to a nation scattered and ravaged, to a people terrible (or, marvelous) from their existence and thenceforth; to a nation of continued waiting and of treading down, whose land the rivers have spoiled! All ye inhabitants of the world, and dwellers on the earth, when a banner is lifted up on the mountains, see ye, and when a trumpet is blown, hear ye! For thus hath Jehovah said unto me, I will take my rest, and I will observe from my dwelling-place like clear heat upon herbs, like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest. For before the harvest, when the blossoming is over, and the flower becometh a ripening grape, he shall both cut off the sprigs with pruning knives, and take away [and] cut down the branches. They shall be left together unto the mountain birds of prey, and to the beasts of the earth; and the birds of prey shall summer upon them, and all the beasts of the earth shall winter upon them. In that time shall a present be brought unto Jehovah of hosts of a people scattered and ravaged—and from a people terrible from their existence and thenceforth, a nation of continued waiting and of treading down, whose land the rivers have spoiled,... to the place of the name of Jehovah of hosts, the mount Zion” (vers. 1-7).
This remarkable prophecy points to some nation very distant from the land of Israel— “beyond the rivers of Cush,” described as “shadowing with wings,” which sends “ambassadors over the sea to a nation scattered and ravaged, to a people terrible (or, marvelous) from their existence and thenceforth, to a nation of continued waiting and treading down” —which latter terms graphically outline the nation of Israel. Here is indicated the befriending of Israel by some maritime nation of widely extended protective power— “shadowing with wings.” Vers. 3-6 intimate that Jehovah stands utterly aloof from all this, for the movement is purely worldly and political, without a trace of repentance on the part of the guilty people. Probably the befriending nation makes a treaty with Israel to restore their land to them and protect them in building their temple and re-establishing their worship. At all events the Roman prince will “confirm a covenant” with the mass of the nation.
Should the reader be curious as to this most interesting chapter of Isaiah, it may be well to explain, without staying now to prove it, that ver. 1 expresses the aloofness of Jehovah from Israel when returned unrepentant to the land; vers. 5 and 6 the awful carnage which comes in judgment upon the apostate mass who will have received and worshipped “the man of sin” ("the antichrist") in the temple; while ver. 7 represents the godly remnant, brought as an offering or present to Jehovah of hosts, when the wicked of Israel will have been destroyed. With fullest desire not to travel beyond the record, yet the description of the tutelary power in Isaiah can scarcely be read without the mind receiving, from the terms of the prophecy, a suggestion of England. No country could be better described as “shadowing with wings,” nor more distinguished for friendship to oppressed peoples—especially the Jews. It would be wrong, however, to assume that England is necessarily indicated, for we do not know what nation may, or may not, at the date in question, answer as well or better, to the terms of the prophecy. The phrase, “Woe to the land shadowing,” etc., is preferably translated, “Ha! land shadowing,” etc., and “beyond the rivers of Cush” may be simply expressive of extreme and unknown distance from the land of the prophet, beyond the remote parts of Africa.
Reverting now to the last week of the seventy, we find that in the midst of that week the Roman prince causes the sacrifice and the oblation to cease. This shows that the Jewish ritual is at this time established; not that the Roman prince caused it to be installed, as that probably was a subject of the covenant which he “confirmed” for a week. But now in the middle of the week, he breaks the covenant, obviously, in order to substitute for the Jewish sacrifice the worship of himself and of the antichrist in the temple. This seems a legitimate inference from the general tenor of the prophecies. That is, “abomination” is a name for an object of idolatrous worship, and we find that the antichrist is to set himself up for worship in the temple. It seems unavoidable that this must be the “abomination of desolation” which scripture predicts to stand in the holy place—a view which is somewhat confirmed by another verse of Daniel which makes the two events to be simultaneous, inasmuch as that they together, are given as a point of time, from which a certain number of days is to be reckoned, viz., “From the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days” (12:11).
Now the instruction for those of the remnant who are in Judaea at this time is immediate flight into the mountains: there is not to be a moment's delay for any consideration whatever. Notice, in passing, the tender solicitude of Christ for His persecuted people. They are told to pray that their flight might not be in the winter, neither on the sabbath day, for then ensues a tribulation such as the world has never yet seen, nor ever will again. “Then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be” (Matthew 24:21). We of the present day who may freely hold and profess whatever faith we choose, enjoying the beneficent protection of government, can have but a faint apprehension of the cruel and relentless oppression of that time. An image is to be made of “the beast,” and all who will not worship the image will be killed (Revelation 13:1.5). As beheading (20:4) is stated to be the mode of this death, probably the guillotine will be again at work. “And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand or in their foreheads: and that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name” (13:16; 17). Thus, even short of death, there will be harassments and persecutions from which there will be no escape. Acknowledgment of the dragon's representative, the beast, will be insisted upon. The mark must be in the right hand, or on the forehead; no occupation can be followed, no one can sell and no one buy, except in the name of the beast; no exception will be allowed; the noble and the peasant, the poor man and the millionaire, the slave and the freeman must bow to and acknowledge Satan in his representative—the beast. The prophetic words are only the graphic touches of a sketch, but reading, as it were, between the lines, one can understand that the tribulation will be, as the Lord said, “such as was not from the beginning of the world to this time, no nor ever shall be.”
This great tribulation will probably have its vortex where the image of the beast is set up—in Jerusalem—but it will be world-wide; for the great multitude of Revelation 7 (see vers. 9-14), and who are of every nation and tribe and people and tongue are stated to have come out of “the great tribulation” —not merely (as in the Authorized Version) great tribulation, such as might happen to any godly person at any time. This is “the great tribulation” (ἡ θλίψις ἡ μεγάλη)
And what will be the end of all this? The Lord says, “Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken” (Matthew 24:29). This is the symbolical language of prophecy; but how is it to be interpreted? Peter tells us that no prophecy of the scripture is of its own, or isolated interpretation (ἰδίας ἐπιλύσεως.); that is, the whole of the scripture hangs together, and there is a consistency, if not uniformity, in the use of prophetic figures. Now in Genesis the greater light, the lesser light, and the stars are described as ruling the day and the night respectively; and it will be found throughout the Revelation and prophecy generally, that the heavenly bodies are symbols of rule—the sun supreme authority, the moon reflected, while the stars represent the minor and subordinate vessels of rule. In the 29th verse then is symbolically portrayed the complete upsettal of all government immediately upon the conclusion of Daniel's seventieth week. What follows the great political convulsion? “Then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven; and then shall all the tribes of the land lament, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory” (Matthew 24:30). To all, except the godly, how appalling will be this sight; but to the Jews who will have accepted, and glorified in, the “lawless” king, the antichrist, how terrible will it be to see the Jesus whom they had crucified and despised, suddenly appear on the clouds of heaven in supernal glory!
[E. J. T.]
(To be continued)