VARIOUS READINGS OF THE PERIOD
It has been sometimes urged, as a reason why we cannot depend on the calculation of this period, that there are various readings, and it is uncertain which is the correct one. The reading of all the Hebrew manuscripts is 2300. The Septuagint, or Greek version, is 2400. The Latin of Jerome, 2200.PREX1 115.1
The Hebrew copies being the oldest, and all the copies agreeing in the reading, it is but a reasonable conclusion that it is the correct reading. As for the reading of Jerome, there are few who place any confidence in it. On the reading of the Septuagint, I beg leave to introduce the following extract from “Begg’s Connected View,” p. 3:—PREX1 115.2
“It is in mercy to His people, although it will and to the condemnation of the wicked, that God has given such clear and determinate intimation of the ‘things that are to come hereafter;’ and any attempt to throw unnecessary doubt upon the certainty of the ‘times’ revealed, calls for severe reprehension. To this charge there is reason to fear the Examinator of Mr. Irving’s Opinions, in the Edinburgh Christian Instructor for 1828, (p. 476.) has exposed himself, when, in order to strengthen his argument for the impossibility of determining the commencement of ‘the mighty year of God’s glory,’ he fixes upon a misprint of one of the dates in our version of the Septuagint translation of the Old Testament. ‘In regard to the long period of Daniel,’ there is, in reality, no reason for its being ‘disputed, whether we should read, with the Hebrew, 2300, or with the Septuagint, 2400 years.’ Although all our common editions of the Septuagint have this typographical error, being printed from an edition into which it had crept, yet the manuscript in the Vatican, from which that very edition was printed, has 2300, and not 2400. And of all the principal standard editions of the Septuagint, that alone from which ours are taken has this error. Let not, then, the carelessness of men be charged upon the Most High, nor the errors of copyists on the Spirit of inspiration.-For a full statement on this subject, see ‘The Scheme of Prophetic Arrangement of the Rev. Edward Irving and Mr. Frere critically examined by William Cunninghame, Esq. of Lainshaw.’”PREX1 115.3
The 2300 days being the correct reading, and “the vision,” including the ram, the goal, and all the horns, they must be understood, not as days, but years. It is perfectly immaterial to my present purpose whether “the little horn” is Rome, entire, pagan and papal; or whether it is popery alone; nor yet whether it is Mahomedism. The question will not turn on that point, but on the import of “The last end of the indignation,” and “the cleansing of the sanctuary.”PREX1 116.1