CHAPTER X COMING EVENTS IN JEWISH HISTORY

To these the last chapter of the prophecy of Daniel is both a historical and chronological key. Its dates are reckoned from the cessation of the “daily sacrifice,”in Jerusalem, and placing there of the “abomination that maketh desolate,”the idolatrous ensign of the desolating power.

The first fulfilment of this event took place B. c. 168. Antiochus Epiphanes having captured Jerusalem with great slaughter, caused the daily sacrifice to cease, polluted the Temple, and dedicated it to Jupiter Olympus, erecting his statue on the altar of burnt offerings, and putting every one to death who resisted his decrees. 1

The second fulfilment, of which the first was typical, took place in A . D . 70, when during the siege of Jerusalem by the Romans, foretold by our Lord, the daily sacrifice ceased, the Temple was burned, and Jerusalem overthrown with great slaughter. Referring to this awful event, and to the previous erection of the idolatrous standards of the Roman army in the precincts of the “holy city,”our Lord had said in reply to a question as to the approaching destruction of the Temple, “When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place (whoso readeth let him understand) then let them which be in Judea flee to the mountains, . . . for then shall be great tribulation such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be “(Matt. 24: 15, 21).

More fully recorded in Luke, our Lord’s prediction was as follows,—”When ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh. Then let them which are in Judea flee to the mountains; and let them which are in the midst of it depart out; and let not them that are in the countries enter thereinto. For these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled. But woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! for there shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people. And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations, and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the-. Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled”(Luke 21: 20-24).

Our Lord had previously foretold with tears this coming judgment, and again when on the way to crucifixion He speaks of it in His touching words, “Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children,””for if they do these things in a green tree what shall be done in the dry?”

The third fulfilment of the placing and setting up of the desplating”power in Jerusalem took place A . D . 637, when at the capture of the city by the Saracens, and the clearing of the temple area for the erection of the Mosque of Omar, the Mohammedan power became supreme; thenceforward to exercise dominion in the Holy City and Holy Land, “until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.”To the entrance of the polluting presence of this power the Patriarch Sophronius strikingly referred in the sentence quoted by Gibbon, “The abomination of desolation is in the holy place.”

Contemporaneously with this setting up of the Mohammedan desolating power in the East, took place the setting up of the idolatrous Papal power in the \Vest; and a comparison of the seven passages in Daniel and the Apocalypse relating to the 1,260 years continuance of the desolating power, yields proof of the conclusion that they refer to the duration of Popery and Mohammedanism.

These twin antichristian powers in the West and in the East, rose together, dominated together, have declined together, and are coming to their end together. Hence various general predictions as to the expected Antichrist may well include both of these in their range of meaning; as the declaration in the first epistle of John that the Antichrist will “deny the Father and the Son.”Popery virtually denies both in exalting the Pope to occupy the place of God, in the temple or church of God, and the place of Christ as the Head of that church; while Mohammedanism actually and openly denies both, in its implacable opposition to the truth revealed in scripture that Christ is the only begotten Son of the Father.

This breadth of range in the meaning of the prophetic word surely harmonizes with the vastness of the mind of its author. Analogous events are comprehended under the same expression, and room is given for the progressive unfolding of the divine meaning in the prolonged course of history.

Thus the “time of trouble “foretold in Daniel 12, seems to include both Jewish and Christian aspects. The “time of trouble “predicted by our Lord is certainly Jewish, and, judging by a comparison of Matthew 24 and Luke 21, commenced with the Roman destruction of Jerusalem, and continues throughout the period in which Jerusalem is “trodden down by the Gentiles,”and the Jews “led captive into all nations”; while the mention of “Michael”as “the great Prince which standeth for the children of thy people”(Dan 12:1) connects “the time of trouble”with the warfare of “Michael and his angels”with “the dragon and his angels”; the seven headed ten horned dragon representing the satanically inspired Roman empire, in its heathenish warfare with the early Christian Church; a warfare renewed under the revived Roman power of Revelation 13, in the “war with the saints,”of later mediaeval and modern Reformation times. It is important to observe that both in the prophecies of Daniel and those of our Lord the “time of trouble “is immediately followed by the resurrection of the dead. “Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake,”says the revealing angel to Daniel, “some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmanent, and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever.”

“Immediately after the tribulation of those days”says our Lord, “shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers J of the heaven shall be shaken. And then shall ap-‘ pear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He shall send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet; and they shall gather together His elect from the foul winds, from one end of heaven to the other”(Matt. 24 : 29-31).

The same order of events is predicted in Zech. 14, where the gathering of “all nations against Jerusalem to battle”is foretold; the capture of “the city,”and “captivity “of the people, followed by the advent of the Lord to deliver, when “His feet shall stand upon the Mount of Olives,”and “the Lord my God shall come, and all the saints with Thee “; an advent to be succeeded by the manifestation of the universal kingdom of God ; “the Lord shall be king over all the earth; in that day there shall be one Lord, and His name one “(Zech. 14 : 1-9). Nor is this order different from that which is revealed in the prophecies of Paul, and in the Apocalypse.

If the ending epoch of Jerusalem’s treading down by the Gentiles be the epoch also of Christ’s second and glorious advent, to what great events are we now near at hand! The “fig tree”which on the Jewish rejection of Christ had withered away, begins to shoot forth leaves after its long period of barrenness, whereby we may know “that summer is nigh”(Matt. 24: 32, 33). The Jews after the dispersion of ages are again being gathered to their own land. Trouble awaits them there. Joseph’s brethren must be brought to self-judgment in a closing crisis of anguish and distress before Joseph reveals himself to them, as the brother whom they had sold into Egypt, and treated as dead. Then shall their tears of repentance be mingled with his tears of forgiving love. Then shall there be “a great mourning in Jerusalem,”for God will “pour upon the house of David, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications, and they shall look upon Me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for Him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for Him, as one that is in. bitterness for his first- born” (Zech. 12:10-14). Then shall be the national affliction ‘and humiliation of the “Day of Atonement”for Israel; following the “blowing of trumpets”which opens the “first day of the seventh month “(Lev. 23), the future Sabbatic portion of their history. There shall sound on the day of atonement for all their sins the jubilee trumpet of restoration to the land, and liberty to the people (Lev. 25); followed in its turn by the still more glorious “Feast of Tabernacles,” whose celebrations are bright with the joys of future ages.

An intelligent consideration of the present position of the Jewish people, of their long continued preservation, and of their deeply rooted national hopes, can only confirm the anticipation of their coming restoration to their own land; while the clear ami multiplied promises of the word of God as to their conversion to Christ leave no room for doubt as to the accomplishment of that blessed event. “The remnant shall return, even the remnant of Jacob unto the mighty God: for though thy people Israel be as the sand of the sea a remnant of them shall return “(Isa. 10: 21, 22). Most of the Jews are now in Russia, where expulsive forces are at work which shall yet drive them out of the country in large numbers. The antisemitic feeling in Germany is extremely strong, and growing in intensity; it exists in the Balkan, states, in France, Algiers and other countries. Forces are thus in existence, ready to expel the Jews in considerable numbers from Gentile lands. The increasing wealth of the Jews, and modern means of travel, facilitate migratory movements on a national scale. But both experience and scripture indicate that the restoration of the Jews will be gradual, and that the early settlers in the land will be chiefly drawn from the poorer classes. Steam communication from South Russia, and the eastern states of Europe, makes the journey to Palestine an easy one. Railways are in operation, and others being built in Palestine in several directions. The Turkish government which has possessed and ruled the land for more than four hundred years, is in a dying condition. The eastern question remains unsolved. Everything points to its solution by the return of the Jews to the land of their fathers. On the other hand the mutually antagonistic powers which surround Palestine, especially the Russian and Turkish, forecast by their presence coming struggles for the possession of the land which are likely to involve the restored Jews in great suffering, and even to expose them to threatened destruction. The Turks are accustomed to perpetrate massacres, and the Russians when roused are still barbarous in their modes of warfare. That Russia covets Palestine is a well known fact. Ten thousand Russian pilgrims annually visit Jerusalem, and the Crimean war which originated in a dispute as to the holy places in that city is a witness to Russian interest in the land of the nativity and the crucifixion.

Beyond the immediate prospects in relation to the Jews and Palestine rises the glowing and glorious picture of the future of that people and land, as portrayed in scripture, and illuminated by a study of the physical conditions, and ethnographical surroundings involved. Placed at the junction of three continents, and at the gateway of commerce between the West and the East; possessed of tropical valleys, and snow-clad mountains, the land of the palm and the cedar, of the olive and the vine, holds forth its hands of promise to the wandering exiled Jews. Carmel and Sharon covered in spring with their roses, the fields of Bethlehem, and hills of Nazareth with their anemones, the plain of Esdraelon with its corn-fields, the Jordan valley with its luxuriant foliage, the wilds of Bashan with their pastures, all wait for the Jewish hands and homes which are yet to cultivate and occupy them. The long neglected Gulf of Akaba with its noble headlands projecting into the Red Sea shall yet become a highway of commerce to southern Palestine. Ezion-geber at the head of that gulf will be connected by railway with the Dead Sea, the Jordan valley, and the Lake of Gennesareth. The waters of Merom, and sources of the Jordan shall be linked with the crowded streets of Damascus, and the snow-clad steeps of Hermon. The slopes of Lebanon will be populated, the city of Antioch revived. Beyrout already connected with the ports of the Mediterranean and with Damascus, shall be the gate of a highroad through the Euphrates valley to the Persian Gulf, India, and the East. Africa traversed with railways shall lie at the feet of Palestine, and Europe with its wealth of civilization shall flourish at its side. The Jews restored from all countries, and speaking all languages, shall be fitted for the work of evangelizing the world. Their marvellous commercial, political, and literary gifts shall come into fullest play. No more shall they be a despised and outcast people. The natural brethren, the blood relations of the King of Glory shall take a foremost place among the nations. The sigh of sorrow, the wail of grief shall be ‘turned to the song of gladness, and the shout of praise. The voice of redeeming love and mercy shall swell from innumerable multitudes; Jrnualcm shall vibrate with its music, Carmel prolong its cadence, and Lebanon echo back its strains. The song of angels shall awake again above the fields of Bethlehem; and heaven and earth unite their voices as never before in the anthem which shall celebrate the triumph of redeeming grace and mercy.

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