[575] Comp. ὀργὴ μεγάλη (1 Macc. i. 64; Isa. x. 5, 25, xxvi. 20; Jer. l. 5; Rom. ii. 5, etc.). [576] Comp. xi. 21. [577] Comp. ii. 34, xi. 45. Antiochus died of a long and terrible illness in Persia. Polybius (xxxi. 11) describes his sickness by the word δαιμονήσας. Arrian (_Syriaca_, 66) says φθίνων ἐτελεύτησε. In 1 Macc. vi. 8-16 he dies confessing his sins against the Jews, but there is another story in 2 Macc. ix. 4-28. [578] Ver. 27, "I was gone" (or, "came to an end") "whole days." With this ἔκστασις comp. ii. 1, vii. 28; Exod. xxxiii. 20; Isa. vi. 5; Luke ix. 32; Acts ix. 4, etc. Comp. xii. 8; Jer. xxxii. 14, and (_contra_) Rev. xxii. 10. [579] In ver. 26 the R.V. renders "it belongeth to many days _to come_." [580] Comp. Gen. i. 5; 2 Cor. xi. 25. The word _tamîd_ includes both the morning and evening sacrifice (Exod. xxix. 41). Pusey says (p. 220), "The shift of halving the days is one of those monsters which have disgraced scientific expositions 'of Hebrew.'" Yet this is the view of such scholars as Ewald, Hitzig, Kuenen, Cornill, Behrmann. The latter quotes a parallel: "vgl. im Hildebrandsliede _sumaro ente wintro_ sehstie = 30 Jahr." [581] Matt. xxiv. 22. [582] "These five passages agree in making the final distress last during three years and a fraction: the only difference lies in the magnitude of the fraction" (Bevan, p. 127). [583] 1 Macc. iv. 41-56; 2 Macc. x. 1-5. [584] See on this period Diod. Sic., _Fr._, xxvi. 79; Liv., xlii. 29; Polyb., _Legat._, 71; Justin, xxxiv. 2; Jer., _Comm. in Dan._, xi. 22; Jahn, _Hebr. Commonwealth_, § xciv.; Prideaux, _Connection_, ii. 146. [585] _Connection_, ii. 188. [586] _Gesch. d. V. Isr._, i. 155. [587] Some of these dates are _uncertain_, and are variously given by different authorities. CHAPTER III _THE SEVENTY WEEKS_ This chapter is occupied with the prayer of Daniel, and with the famous vision of the seventy weeks which has led to such interminable controversies, but of which the interpretation no longer admits of any certainty, because accurate data are not forthcoming. The vision is dated in the first year of Darius, the son of Achashverosh, of the Median stock.[588] We have seen already that such a person is unknown to history. The date, however, accords well in this instance with the literary standpoint of the writer. The vision is sent as a consolation of perplexities suggested by the writer's study of the Scriptures; and nothing is more naturally imagined than the fact that the overthrow of the Babylonian Empire should have sent a Jewish exile to the study of the rolls of his holy prophets, to see what light they threw on the exile of his people.