brought in, and this Vision be accomplished, and the Prophet consummated, that Prophet whom the Jews expected; and whereby the most Holy should be anointed, he who is therefore in the next words called the Anointed, that is, the Messiah, or the Christ.  For by joining the accomplishment of the vision with the expiation of sins, the 490 years are ended with the death of Christ.  Now the dispersed Jews became a people and city when they first returned into a polity or body politick; and this was in the seventh year of Artaxerxes Longimanus, when Ezra returned with a body of Jews from captivity, and revived the Jewish worship; and by the King’s commission created Magistrates in all the land, to judge and govern the people according to the laws of God and the King, Ezra vii. 25.  There were but two returns from captivity, Zerubbabel’s and Ezra’s; in Zerubbabel’s they had only commission to build the Temple, in Ezra’s they first became a polity or city by a government of their own.  Now the years of this Artaxerxes began about two or three months after the summer solstice, and his seventh year fell in with the third year of the eightieth Olympiad; and the latter part thereof, wherein Ezra went up to Jerusalem, was in the year of the Julian Period 4257.  Count the time from thence to the death of Christ, and you will find it just 490 years.  If you count in Judaic years commencing in autumn, and date the reckoning from the first autumn after Ezra’s coming to Jerusalem, when he put the King’s decree in execution; the death of Christ will fall on the year of the Julian Period 4747, Anno Domini 34; and the weeks will be Judaic weeks, ending with sabbatical years; and this I take to be the truth:  but if you had rather place the death of Christ in the year before, as is commonly done, you may take the year of Ezra’s journey into the reckoning.

Know also and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to cause to return and to build Jerusalem_, unto the Anointed the Prince, shall be seven weeks_.  The former part of the Prophecy related to the first coming of Christ, being dated to his coming as a Prophet; this being dated to his coming to be Prince or King, seems to relate to his second coming.  There, the Prophet was consummate, and the most holy anointed:  here, he that was anointed comes to be Prince and to reign.  For Daniel’s Prophecies reach to the end of the world; and there is scarce a Prophecy in the Old Testament concerning Christ, which doth not in something or other relate to his second coming.  If divers of the antients, as [8] Irenaeus, [9] Julius Africanus, Hippolytus the martyr, and Apollinaris Bishop of Laodicea, applied the half week to the times of Antichrist; why may not we, by the same liberty of interpretation, apply the seven weeks to the time when Antichrist shall be destroyed by the brightness of Christ’s coming?