Page:06.CBOT.KD.PropheticalBooks.B.vol.6.LesserProphets.djvu/370

 The words נגיד משׁיח עד show the termination of the seven weeks. The words נגיד משׁיח are not to be translated an anointed prince (Bertholdt); for משׁיח cannot be an adjective to נגיד, because in Hebr. The adjective is always placed after the substantive, with few exceptions, which are inapplicable to this case; cf. Ewald's Lehrb. §293b. Nor can משׁיח be a participle: till a prince is anointed (Steudel), but it is a noun, and נגיד is connected with it by apposition: an anointed one, who at the same time is a prince. According to the O.T., kings and priests, and only these, were anointed. Since, then, משׁיח is brought forward as the principal designation, we may not by נגיד think of a priest-prince, but only of a prince of the people, nor by משׁיח of a king, but only of a priest; and by נגיד משׁיח we must understand a person who first and specially is a priest, and in addition is a prince of the people, a king. The separation of the two words in Dan 9:26, where נגיד is acknowledged as meaning a prince of the people, leads to the same conclusion. This priest-king can neither be Zerubbabel (according to many old interpreters), nor Ezra (Steudel), nor Onias III (Wieseler); for Zerubbabel the prince was not anointed, and the priest Ezra and the high priest Onias were not princes of the people. Nor can Cyrus be meant here, as Saad., Gaon., Bertholdt, v. Lengerke, Maurer, Ewald, Hitzig, Kranichfeld, and others think, by a reference to Isa 45:1; for, supposing it to be the case that Daniel had reason from Isa 45:1 to call Cyrus משׁיח - which is to be doubted, since from this epithet משׁיחו, His (Jehovah's) anointed, which Isaiah uses of Cyrus, it does not follow as of course that he should be named משׁיח - the title ought at least to have been משׁיח נגיד, the משׁיח being an adjective following נגיד, because there is no evident reason for the express precedence of the adjectival definition. The O.T. knows only One who shall be both priest and king in one person (Psa 110:4; Zec 6:13), Christ, the Messias (Joh 4:25),