Whiston’s Accomplishment of Scripture Prophecies

to the Sure word of Prophecy; or to the ancient Predictions of the Jewish Prophets, and their remarkable completion in Christ Jesus, as another most uncontestcd evidence for the Truth of his Religion. {emphasis his}

1. In Jewish {by this I believe he means Old Testament/Old Covenant} prophecies, a “year” literally means a year.
2. In Christian prophecies {New Covenant}, a “day” means a year.
3. We compute these numbers according to how the prophet himself, in his particular age and nation, would have computed them.
4. Number four sounds just like number three to me and I’m having trouble making the mental distinction. It sounds to me that it is simply re-emphasizing principle three in light of difficult passages he will cover later in his sermons.
5. Prophecies, especially from the latter part of the Old Testament, which are expressly said to take place in the “last days,” “latter days,” and “time of the end” are not referring to the literal end of the world as we know it, but rather the Last Great Age, which Whiston repeatedly refers to as the “Days of the Messias.” And, no, I don’t know why “Messias” appears to be plural.
6. Numbers are used with great exactness in prophecy. So, for instance, there is little leeway on either side for some event to happen and still be accurately called a fulfillment. Whiston says that a “year” allows six months on either side, a “week” allows fifteen days on either side, and a “day” only twelve hours.
7. General words used indefinitely are to be understood in their most remarkable sense. He gives no examples here, but I am anticipating some in the future.
8. Because so many difficult-seeming {at the time of their writing} prophecies have already been easily and obviously fulfilled, we can trust that the same will be able to be said of those events which have not yet taken place. I took this to mean that we do not need to fret over the possiblity of vague future fulfillments.

These are Whiston’s fundamental eight principles, and I believe they were considered to be the traditional understanding of the Church over the ages. Am I the only one surprised that he did not explain what a “week” is meant by in the Book of Daniel?