from the time that the dispersed _Jews_ should be
re-incorporated into [7] a people and a holy city, until the death and
resurrection of _Christ_; whereby _transgression should be finished, and
sins ended, iniquity be expiated, and everlasting righteousness brought in,
and this Vision be accomplished, and the Prophet consummated_, that Prophet
whom the _Jews_ expected; and whereby _the most Holy_ should be _anointed_,
he who is therefore in the next words called the _Anointed_, that is, the
_Messiah_, or the _Christ_. For by joining the accomplishment of the vision
with the expiation of sins, the 490 years are ended with the death of
_Christ_. Now the dispersed _Jews_ became a people and city when they first
returned into a polity or body politick; and this was in the seventh year
of _Artaxerxes Longimanus_, when _Ezra_ returned with a body of _Jews_ from
captivity, and revived the _Jewish_ worship; and by the King's commission
created Magistrates in all the land, to judge and govern the people
according to the laws of God and the King, _Ezra_ vii. 25. There were but
two returns from captivity, _Zerubbabel_'s and _Ezra_'s; in _Zerubbabel_'s
they had only commission to build the Temple, in _Ezra_'s they first became
a polity or city by a government of their own. Now the years of this
_Artaxerxes_ began about two or three months after the summer solstice, and
his seventh year fell in with the third year of the eightieth _Olympiad_;
and the latter part thereof, wherein _Ezra_ went up to _Jerusalem_, was in
the year of the _Julian Period_ 4257. Count the time from thence to the
death of _Christ_, and you will find it just 490 years. If you count in
_Judaic_ years commencing in autumn, and date the reckoning from the first
autumn after _Ezra_'s coming to _Jerusalem_, when he put the King's decree
in execution; the death of _Christ_ will fall on the year of the _Julian
Period_ 4747, _Anno Domini_ 34; and the weeks will be _Judaic_ weeks,
ending with sabbatical years; and this I take to be the truth: but if you
had rather place the death of _Christ_ in the year before, as is commonly
done, you may take the year of _Ezra_'s journey into the reckoning.

_Know also and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to
cause to return and to build _Jerusalem_, unto the Anointed the Prince,
shall be seven weeks_. The former part of the Prophecy related to the first
coming of _Christ_, being dated to his coming as a Prophet;