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Daniel 11: 37

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Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Feb 20, 1879

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 5, No. 8.

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Daniel 11: 37.

THE correct idea of this passage is not always fully reached even by those who have commented upon it.
It is mostly considered that the expression —“neither shall he regard the desire of women”—means that women themselves, or a desire for women shall be disregarded. The correct interpretation is that he shall not regard that which is the desire of women, or that which women desire and most highly prize.
And what is that? It is truth well-known that where the institution of marriage is honored, there woman is honored and elevated. Where marriage is dishonored woman is degraded. Marriage is the special boon to women—the highest blessing on earth. This is represented as their desire; and this is just what the French nation set aside and abrogated—disregarded—in that terrible infidel “Revolution.”
Some may object that at that time some women repudiated marriage, and did not desire it. But this does not present the difficulty which is found in the other view,—a difficulty which always troubled us while we saw only that view,—namely, that at that time the people were actually steeped in licentiousness. They did not disregard their desire for women, as it is generally construed. Therefore such a construction is contrary to the teaching of the text.
In confirmation of the view we here present, we cite Haggai 2: 7, where a like expression is found. “I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come.” In the French Revolution, all women did not then desire marriage; so all nations do not now desire, and have not desired, Messiah, to whom the text in Haggai evidently refers. But all nations actually desire peace and happiness, benefits which Messiah can alone confer on the fallen human race. Without him there is neither peace nor happiness to the race, either to individuals or to nations. He indeed personates “the desire of all nations.”
Even so all women, except the grossly degraded, desire that which marriage alone can bring to women; so it may properly be denominated “the desire of women.”
This view confirms the application of this text of the prophecy of Daniel to infidel France, the only nation which ever formally and legally abolished the institution of marriage. Other nations and peoples have greatly abused and perverted it; but no other nation abolished it, or entirely disregarded it.