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the life and actions of men in the world. The sin of the king in placing himself with God, therefore, as Kliefoth rightly remarks, “consists in this, that in these ordinances he does not regard the fundamental conditions given by God, but so changes the laws of human life that he puts his own pleasure in the place of the divine arrangements.” Thus shall he do with the ordinances of life, not only of God's people, but of all men. “But it is to be confessed that the people of God are most affected thereby, because they hold their ordinances of life most according to the divine plan; and therefore the otherwise general passage stands between two expressions affecting the conduct of the horn in its relation to the people of God.”
This tyranny God's people will suffer “till, i.e., during, a time, (two) times, and half a time.” By these specifications of time the duration of the last phase of the world-power is more definitely declared, as a period in its whole course measured by God; Dan 7:12 and Dan 7:22. The plural word עדּנין (times) standing between time and half a time can only designate the simple plural, i.e., two times used in the dual sense, since in the Chaldee the plural is often used to denote a pair where the dual is used in Hebrew; cf. Winer, Chald. Gr. §55, 3. Three and a half times are the half of seven times (Dan 4:13). The greater number of the older as well as of the more recent interpreters take imte (עדּן) as representing the space of a year, thus three and a half times as three and a half years; and they base this view partly on Dan 4:13, where seven times must mean seven years, partly on Dan 12:7, where the corresponding expression is found in Hebrew, partly on Rev 13:5 and Rev 11:2-3, where forty-two months and 1260 days are used interchangeably. But none of these passages supplies a proof that will stand the test. The supposition that in Dan 4:13 the seven times represent seven years, neither is nor can be proved. As regards the time and times in Dan 12:7, and the periods named in the passages of the Rev. referred to, it is very questionable whether the weeks and the days represent the ordinary weeks of the year and days of the week, and whether these periods of time are to be taken chronologically. Still less can any explanation as to this designation of time be derived from the 2300 days (evening-mornings) in Dan 8:14, since the periods do not agree, nor do both passages treat of the same event. The choice of the chronologically indefinite expression עדּן, time, shows that a chronological determination of the period is not in view, but that the designation of time is to be