The object for which “the Earth” had exhaled from its stratum the Cloud of Deputies in response to the Royal Edict, saying, “Ascend hither!” was the establishment of a Constitution. The instruction given to its deputies energetically expressed its demand for this, with the understanding that the new government was to be monarchical and hereditary.
It may be as well to state here in relation to the number in Dan. 8:14, that there are various readings of the text. In some manuscripts seen by Jerome in the 4th century, the number was written 2200. The English Version on his authority reads 2300. But in the Septuagint, translated from the Hebrew, about 265 years before the birth of Jesus, for the use of the Jews in Egypt, who spoke Greek, the number is written 2400.
Before Christ
or 2520 years of the Kingdom of Men from the 1st of Nebuchadnezzar — Dan. 4:16,23 612
A period is herein allotted for the operations of “the Earth” upon the powers of the City. It is indicated by an hour; which, being a twelfth part of a Jewish circle of time, if that circle be a day for a year, would rep
“And in that hour there was a great earthquake, and the Tenth of the City fell. ”
An earthquake, in symbolic language, is a shaking of “the earth,” which, in the political system of the world, is representative of the com
“And they heard a great voice out of the heaven saying to them, ‘Ascend hither!’ And they ascended into the heaven in the cloud; and their enemies beheld them. ”
“We have long been praying thy kingdom come, and is there any probability,” says Mr. Bicheno, “that the preludes to it are arrived? And shall we be unconcerned about the signs of the times? It is deserving the most serious consideration, whether the revolution in France be not the beginning of the fulfilment of this prophecy.
And what length of time was to elapse from the slaying of the witnessing bodies in A.D. 1685, to their resurrection? The answer of the text is in mystical terms “three days and a half.” Now during all the time of their lying dead and unburied in the breadth of the Great City, no one was able rightly to conjecture what number of years was signified by this enigmatical formula. But, when they arose and “stood upon their feet,” they convulsed the Great City, and made it tremble in all its ten kingdoms.
“And they shall see among the peoples, and tribes, and tongues, and nations, their corpses three days and a half, and they shall not suffer their corpses to be put into tombs. ”
It was in the plateia, or Breadth, of the Great City, the witnesses were to be killed and to lie unburied for three days and a half.