and fifty-four years, to which we add twenty-nine years (the age at about which Christ entered on his public ministry);[125] these united, make the exact period of sixty-nine weeks, or four hundred and eighty-three years. Daniel also declares that "seventy weeks (or four hundred and ninety years) are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy." We find between the seventy weeks, or four hundred and ninety years, and the sixty-nine weeks, or four hundred and eighty-three years, a difference of one week, or seven years, which is the week evidently alluded to in the twenty-seventh verse of this chapter, in which "he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week, &c." From the period of Christ's first entry into the ministry, and the calling of his apostles, until his crucifixion, were three and a half years, and, for three and a half years after that event, his apostles continued to minister amongst the Jews. This makes a period of seven years, (or one prophetic week,) in the midst of which the Messiah was cut off, and "the sacrifice and oblation" virtually ceased. The correspondence is exact: Jesus, the Messiah, not only entered on his public ministry at the very period pointed out ages before, but was actually cut off in the midst of the week, as was expressly foretold. These predictions of the Prince Messiah are peculiarly striking. The time for his appearance is marked, and the particular objects he should effect on his coming, are described with such minuteness, as scarcely to admit of the possibility of mistaking his person. The grand features of his mission were so strongly exhibited, that it was morally impossible the Messiah should appear and not be recognised. Prejudice must have blinded the eye of that mind which does not, on comparing the whole of the New Testament with this prophecy, acknowledge Jesus of Nazareth to be the Messiah. It bears the stamp of divine prescience: none but the omniscient God could have given his features with such clearness so many ages before. This portrait of the Messiah, which bears so exact a resemblance to Jesus, was in the possession of the Jews, at least five hundred years before that glorious person was exhibited to the world, a God incarnate. [117] Dan. iii. 4-15. [118] Numbers xx. 11. [119] Lev. xxiii. 3., xxv. 3, 4. [120] Lev. xxv. 8. 10. [121] 2 Chron. xxxvi. 22, 23. [122] Ezra vi. 7-12. [123] Ezra vii. 11-23. [124] Neh. ii. 1-8. [125] Luke iii. 23.