10:6. “…that there should be time no longer…” (KJV) “…that there should be no more delay…” (RSV).
The tradition had it that the Lord had delayed the destruction of the first Temple so that it would not happen in the winter. [2:314]
“…Those days shall be shortened…” (Matt. 24:22), is explained by the traditions as being the days during the siege in which there were some of the elect still in the city and some who had fled into the hills and mountains and for their sakes the times of the siege were shortened. [2:314]
“…The nations of the world, … is a very common form of speech amongst the Jews, by which they express the Gentiles, or all other nations beside themselves. …{kosmos} and … {aion} have a peculiar propriety in sacred writ, which they have not in profane authors: so that … {aion} hath relation only to the Jewish ages, and … {kosmos} to the nations that are not Jewish. Hence …, Matt. xxiv. 3, is meant the end of the Jewish age, or world. And …, Tit. i.2, is before the Jewish world began. And hence it is that the world very often in the New Testament is to be understood only of the Gentile world.” [3:135]
“From the first of Cyrus to the death of Christ are seventy weeks of years, or four hundred and ninety years, Dan.ix.24.” Lightfoot has just calculated the years of the world up to that time. He has calculated the time that Ezekiel lay on his side for the iniquity of the house of Israel as 390 days which included the 40 days for the iniquity of the house of Judah, Ezek. 4:4-6. [2:28]
It seems more appropriate to the sense of the text of Ezekiel to say that the 390 days did not include the 40 days. If that be the case, then Christ‘s crucifixion was forty years before the end of Daniel‘s seventy weeks of years; that is, 450 years of Daniel’s seventy weeks had expired. That would leave the forty year period between Christ’s crucifixion and the destruction of the Temple to complete the predicted seventy weeks of Daniel. Lightfoot, [2:32) says that it is commonly deputed that there was a space of forty years between Christ’s death and the destruction. See my article in the Vol.1 Introductory Articles, “Calculating the seventy weeks”.
“…The epoch of the Messias is dated from the resurrection of Christ.” [2:187]
“‘R. Eliezer saith, The days of the Messias are forty years, as it is said, ”Forty years was I provoked by this generation.” And again; ‘R. Judah saith, In that generation, when the Son of David shall come, the schools shall be harlots; Galilee shall be laid waste; Gablan shall be destroyed; and the inhabitants of the earth [the Gloss is ‘the Sanhedrim‘] (Underlines Mine) shall wander from city to city, and shall not obtain pity; the wisdom of the scribes shall stink; and they that fear to sin shall be despised; and the faces of that generation shall be like the faces of dogs; and truth shall fail, &c. Run over the history of these forty years, from the death of Christ to the destruction of Jerusalem (as they are vulgarly computed), and you will wonder to observe the nation conspiring to its own destruction, and rejoicing in the slaughters and spoils of one another beyond all example, and even to a miracle. This phrensy certainly was sent upon them from heaven. And first, they are deservedly become mad who trod the wisdom of God, as much as they could, under their feet. And secondly the blood of the prophets and of Christ, bringing the good tidings of peace, could not be expiated by a less vengeance. Tell me, O Jew, whence is that rage of your nation towards the destruction of one another, and those monsters of madness beyond all examples? Does the nation rave for nothing, unto their own ruin? Acknowledge the Divine vengeance in thy madness, more than that which befell thee from men. He that reckons up the differences, contentions, and broils of the nation, after the dissension betwixt the Pharisees and the Sadducees, will meet with no less between the scholars of Shammai and Hillel, which increased to that degree, that at last it came to slaughter and blood.
“The scholars of Shammai and Hillel came to the chamber of Chananiah Ben Ezekiah Ben Garon, to visit him: that was a woful day, like the day wherein the golden calf was made. The scholars of Shammai stood below, and slew some of the scholars of Hillel. The tradition is, That six of them went up, and the rest stood there present with swords and spears.’
“It passed into a common proverb, that ‘Elias the Tishbite himself could not decide the controversies between the scholars of Hillel and the scholars of Shammai.’ They dream they were determined by a voice from heaven; but certainly the quarrels and bitternesses were not at all decided.
“‘Before the Bath Kol [in Jabneh] went forth, it was lawful equally to embrace either the decrees of the school of Hillel, or those of the school of Shammai. At last the Bath Kol came forth, and spake thus; ”The words, both of the one party and the other, are the words of the living God; but the certain decision of the matter is according to the decrees of the school of Hillel.’ And from thenceforth, whosoever shall transgress the decrees of the school of Hillel is guilty of death.”
“And thus the controversy was decided; but the hatreds and spites were not so ended. I observe, in the Jerusalem Gemarists the word …Shamothi, used for a scholar of Shammai: which I almost suspect, from the affinity of the word…Shammatha, which signifies Anathema, to be a word framed by the scholars of Hillel, in hate, ignominy, and reproach of those of Shammai. And when I read more than one of R. Tarphon’s being in danger by robbers, because in some things he followed the custom and manner of the school of Shammai; I cannot but suspect snares were daily laid by one another, and hostile treacheries continually watching to do each other mischief.”
….”Thus, as if they were struck with a phrensy from heaven, the doctors of the nation rage one against another; and from their very schools and chairs flow not so much doctrines, as animosities, jarrings, slaughters, and butcheries. To these may be added those fearful outrages, spoils, murders, devastations of robbers, cut-throats, zealots, and amazing cruelties, beyond all example. And if these things do not savour of the divine wrath and vengeance, what ever did?” [2:188-90]
Concerning Matt. 24:15, “the abomination of desolation”, Lightfoot says: “These words relate to that passage of Daniel (chap.ix.27),…which I would render thus; ‘In the middle of that week,’ namely, the last of the seventy, ‘he shall cause the sacrifice and oblation to cease, even until the wing or army of abomination shall make desolate,’ &c.; or even by the wing of abominations making desolate….[wing] is an army, Isa. viii.8: and in that sense Luke rendered these words, ‘when you shall see Jerusalem compassed about with an army, ‘ &c.”
“…[Let him that readeth understand.] This is not spoken so much for obscurity as for the certainty of the prophecy: as if he should say, ‘He that reads those words in Daniel, let him mind well that when the army of the prince which is to come, that army of abominations, shall compass round Jerusalem with a siege, then most certain destruction hangs over it; for, saith Daniel, ”the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city, and the sanctuary,’ &c., ver. 26. And the army of abominations shall make desolate even until the consummation, and that which is determined shall be poured out upon the desolate.’ Flatter not yourselves, therefore, with vain hopes, either of future victory, or of the retreating of that army, but provide for yourselves; and he that is in Judea, let him fly to the hills and places of most difficult access, not into the city.'” [2:313-14]
“…Those ominous prodigies are very memorable, which are related by the Talmudists to have happened forty years before the destruction of the Temple.
“A tradition. Forty years before the Temple was destroyed, the western candle’ (that is, the middlemost in the holy candlestick) ‘was put out….And the gates of the Temple, which were shut over night, were found open in the morning. Rabban Jochanan Ben Zaccai said, ‘Therefore, O Temple, wherefore dost thou trouble us? we know thy fate; namely, that thou art to be destroyed: for it is said, Open, O Lebanon thy gates, that the flame may consume thy cedars.” ‘A tradition. Forty years before the Temple was destroyed, judgment in capital causes was taken away from Israel.’ ‘Forty years before the Temple was destroyed, the council removed and sat in the sheds….” [2:324-5]
10:7: “… the mystery of God should be finished, as He hath declared to His servants the prophets.”
Davies, [91-2, note 8, quoting J. A. Robinson]: “… it [mystery] denotes ‘the great truths of the Christian religion, which could not have become known to men except by Divine disclosure or revelation. A mystery in this sense is not a thing which must be kept secret. On the contrary, it is a secret which God wills to make known, and has charged His Apostles to declare to those who have ears to hear it.'”