Page:The old paths, or The Talmud tested by Scripture.djvu/405



"But go thou thy way till the end be, for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days." (Daniel xii. 6-13.) Rav was therefore of opinion that the period appointed by Daniel the prophet was past. But is it possible to believe that the God of truth would suffer the time, which he had appointed, to pass away without accomplishing what he had promised? When the time which God had fixed for the deliverance from Egypt had arrived, not a single day was lost. "It came to pass at the end of the four hundred and thirty years, even the self-same day,

it came to pass, that all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt." (Exod. xii. 41.) "When the period fixed for the return from Babylon was come, we read, "In the first year of Cyrus, King of Persia (that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be accomplished), the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, that he made a proclamation through all his kingdom." (2 Chron. xxxvi. 22.) And can we think that the Lord God, who so graciously fulfilled his word on these occasions should break it with reference to the coming of the Messiah? Rav is either right or wrong. If he be right, then the time fixed by God is long since past, and as God cannot break his word, the Messiah must have come long since. But if, to get out of a difficulty, the Rabbinists say, that Rav was wrong, then we have another proof that no reliance is to be placed on the doctors of the oral law; indeed we have a proof that the Rabbinists themselves do not believe it, except when they like; and that therefore they are not thoroughly in earnest about their religion.

But, secondly, the ancient Jews not only believed that the time for the coming of the Messiah was past: they also fixed the exact period:—

"Tradition of the school of Elijah. The world is to stand six thousand years. Two thousand, confusion. Two thousand, the law. Two thousand, the days of Messiah." (Sanhedrin, fol. 97, col. 1.) Upon which Rashi remarks—

"After the two thousand years of the law, according to the decree. Messiah ought to have come, and the wicked kingdom