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oppression of the people by the little horn was to continue not fully a period of seven years. But the times of God's visitations, trials, and judgments are so often measured by the number seven, that this number came to bear stamped on it this signification; see under Dan 4:13; Dan 7:25. The number of seven years is used in the symbolical meaning when, not to mention the cases in Gen 29:18, Gen 29:27; Gen 41:26., and Jdg 6:1, seven years' famine were laid upon the land as a punishment for David's sin in numbering the people (2Sa 24:13), and when in Elisha's time Israel was visited with seven years' famine (2Ki 8:1). Thus the answer of the angel has this meaning: The time of the predicted oppression of Israel, and of the desolation of the sanctuary by Antiochus, the little horn, shall not reach the full duration of a period of divine judgment, shall not last so long as the severe oppression of Israel by the Midianites, Jdg 6:1, or as the famine which fell upon Israel in the time of Elisha, and shall not reach to a tenth part of the time of trial and of sorrow endured by the exiles, and under the weight of which Israel then mourned.
But if this is the meaning of the angel's message, why does not the divine messenger use a pure symbolical expression, such as “not full seven times?” and why does he not simply say, “not quite seven years?” As to the first of these questions, we answer that the expression “times” is too indefinite; for the duration of this period of sorrow must be given more minutely. As to the second question, we know no other answer that can be given than this, that, on the one side, only the positive determination of the length of time, measured by days, can afford full confidence that the domination and the tyranny of the oppressor shall not continue one day longer than God has before fixed; but, on the other side, by the measuring of this period by a number defined according to thousands and hundreds, both the long duration of the affliction is shown, and the symbolical character of the period named is indicated. While by the period “evening-morning” every ambiguity of the expression, and every uncertainty thence arising regarding the actual length of the time of affliction, is excluded, yet the number 2300 shows that the period must be defined in round numbers, measuring only nearly the actual time, in conformity with all genuine prophecy, which never passes over into the mantic prediction of historico-chronological data.
If we compare with this the designation of time in Dan 7:25, instead of the general idea there expressed, of “time, times, and