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God with man is thus indeed suggested, yet it is not rendered necessary, but only points to a relation analogous to the concluding of a covenant emanating from God. לרבּים with the article signifies the many, i.e., the great mass of the people in contrast with the few, who remain faithful to God; cf. Mat 24:12. Therefore the thought is this: That ungodly prince shall impose on the mass of the people a strong covenant that they should follow him and give themselves to him as their God.
While the first clause of this verse announces what shall happen during the whole of the last week, the second treats only of the half of this period. השׁבוּע חצי we cannot grammatically otherwise interpret than the definition of time mentioned immediately before, and thus, for reasons give above, cannot take it as the subject of the clause, but only as the accusative of the duration of time, consequently not in the sense of the ablative: in the midst of the week. The controversy whether חצי here means half, or midst, has no bearing on the matter, and acquires significance only if we interpret חצי, in opposition to the context, as synonymous with בּחצי, or with Klief., which is equally untenable and impossible in this context, regard השׁבוּע חצי as an absolute definition. חצי signifies only half, not midst. Only where the representation of an extent of space or period of time prevails can we render it, without a change of its meaning, by the word midst. In the half of the night is the same as in the middle of the night, at midnight, Exo 12:29; in the half of the firmament, Jos 10:13, is the same as in the middle of the space of the heavens across which the sun moves during day; in the half of the day of life is the same as in the middle of the period of life, Psa 102:25. But during the half of the week is not the same as: in the middle of the week. And the objection, that if we here take חצי in the sense of half, then the heptad or cycle of seven would be divided into two halves (Klief.), and yet of only one of them was anything said, is without significance, because it would touch also the explanation “and in the midst of the heptad,” since in this case of the first, before the middle of the expiring half of the week, nothing also is said of what shall be done in it. If Kliefoth answers this objection by saying that we must conceive of this from the connection, namely, that which brings the power of Antichrist to its height, then we shall be able also, in the verbally correct interpretation of השׁבוּע חצי, to conceive from the connection what shall happen in the remaining period of the שׁבוּע. Yet weaker is the further objection: