The Book of Daniel
263
horn," shrewd and arrogant. I t was to wear out the saints of the Most High, to be diverse from the other ten soverei gn ties, to have the other soverei gn ties given into its hand, and to keep its dominion till the coming of the Son of Man. Whatever this dread power is, or is to be, it was to follow the fall of the Roman empire and to rise among the nations which, ever since, in some form or other have existed where Rome on€e held sway. Whether that power, differing from civil governments and holding dominance over them, exists now and has existed for more than a thousand years, or is to be developed in the future, it was to arise in the Christi:Ml era. The words are so descriptive, that no reader would ever have doubted were it not that the prophecy involves prediction. The attempt of the "very little horn" of chapter 8, An tiochus Epiphanes, to extirpate true religion from the earth, failed. Yet it was well-nigh successful. The majority of the nation were brought to abandon Jehovah and to serve Diana. The high priest in Jerusalem sent the treasurers of the temple to Antioch as an offering to Hercules. Jews out-bade each other in their subservience to Antiochus. His cruelties were great but his blandishments were more effective for his pur pose; "by peace he destroyed many". Idolatrous sacrifices were offered throughout Judea. Judaism was all but dead, and with its death the worship of the one God would have found no place in all the earth. This prophecy encour:"ged the lew faithful ones to resist the Greek and their own faithless fellow countrymen. God foresaw and forewarned. The warning was unheeded by the mass of the Jews. Sadduceeism then did not believe i n the supernatural and i t has repeated its disbelief. Fortunately there was a believing remnant and true religion was saved from extinctkm. The Seventy Weeks. (Dan. 9 :24-27.) "Weeks" in this prophecy are not weeks of days but "sevens," prn>bably years,
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