Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Daniel 8:1
In the third year of the reign of king Belshazzar a vision appeared unto me, [even unto] me Daniel, after that which appeared unto me at the first.
1. In the third year &c.] See the note on Dan 7:1.
at the first ] properly, at the beginning (Gen 13:3; Gen 41:21; Gen 43:18; Gen 43:20). The reference is to ch. 7 where the first of Daniel’s visions is recorded.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
In the third year of the reign of king Belshazzar – In regard to Belshazzar, see Intro. to Dan. 5 Section II.
A vision appeared unto me – This vision appears to have occurred to him when awake, or in an ecstasy; the former one occurred when he was asleep, Dan 7:1. Compare Dan 8:17-18, where the prophet represents himself as overpowered, and as falling down to the earth on account of the vision. The representation would seem to have been made to pass before his mind in open day, and when he was fully awake. Compare the case of Balaam, Num 24:4 : Which saw the vision of the Almighty, falling into a trance, but having his eyes open.
After what appeared unto me at the first – That occurred in the first year of Belshazzar, Dan 7:1.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Dan 8:1-27
Then I lifted up mine eyes, and saw, and behold, there stood before the river a ram which had two horns.
The World-powers and Israel
A glance at the particulars in this vision is enough to satisfy us that we have to do with some of the same powers brought to view in the preceding chapter, and in Nebuchadnezzars dream. What, at first glance, we might be disposed to regard as mere repetitions are not such in reality. There is something connected with the repetition to adapt it to some altered position, end, or intent. In the two preceding visions we behold the pictures of the powers of the world as a whole, without regard to any distinction between Jew and Gentile. It is human dominion in its broadest view, in the entirety of its history–first as outwardly considered, and then as spiritually considered, and finally superseded by the Kingdom of God. The vision now in hand is given, not in Chaldee, but in Hebrew. What Daniel is shown of these world-power manifestations he sees and hears not only as a spiritual man of God, but more particularly as a Jewish prophet, and as mainly concerning the Jewish people. Hence the dominion of Babylon is left out entirely, for it was now on the eve of its downfall, and nothing more was to come of it to the Jews. It is still the same world-power in its various forms which constitutes the subject of this vision, but with the emphasis now on what particularly concerns the Jewish prophet, and with all else touched but lightly, or not at all. To little purpose do we read the Book of Daniel not to find in it a solemn warning to the Church of our time, and for all the days yet to come, to beware of the fascinating flatteries and secularising expedients and compliances which, in the self-idolising spirit of spurious charity, specious liberality, mad heartless scepticism, would tempt her to forget her Dirge origin and Heavenly destiny. There is a spirit abroad which would have the Church rescind her sacred charter, cancel her authentic commission, and assimilate herself to a mere political or conventional institution. Men call it a liberalising spirit, a spirit of improvement, which would change our Christian schools and colleges into mere secular gymnasiums and scientific museums or artistic studios and literary athenaeums but it is a spirit which is prone to treat holy Scriptures as mere human lucubrations of worthy men before the ages of better light, rationalise away all the definite doctrines of the authourised creed into mere scholastic or philosophical theorems, dissolve the sacraments into picturesque symbolisms and visionary shadows without life or power, and dismantle the ministry and services of the Church as if they never had a solid right to be regarded as the appointment of very God for conveying and imparting to lost men the regenerating, sanctifying and only restorative gifts of Jehovahs grace. It is the spirit of Antichrist. Many of the so-called churches, and the leaders of the prevailing religious sentiment of our day, are sewing for a harvest of miseries of which they but little dream. Daniel was greatly affected by these visions, and the explanations made of them, as he well might be. (Joseph A. Seiss, D.D.)
Vision of the -Ram and the He-Goat
Learn:
1. The strength of one evil habit may overcome even the mightiest conqueror. Alexander the Great died as the victim of his own excesses at the early age of thirty-three. He could conquer the world by his armies, yet intemperance was his master and destroyer. How many there are among us who have made similar conquests, and been themselves similarly overcome. Think of Lord Byron and Robert Burns, the two poets. To no purpose shall we gain other crowns if we are our- selves the slaves of appetite. It is easier to acquire a habit than it is to break it off.
2. Conformity to the world is fraught with great danger to the people of God. If we have been right in conjecturing that the evils which came upon the Jews in the days of Anticchus were designed as chastisements for their unfaithfulness to the covenant, the history over which we have come is, in this regard, full of most salutary warning. Nor does it stand alone. The tendency of these days is to minimize the difference between the Christian and other men. So it happens that the Church of Christ is invaded by the unbelieving, and its power to resist and overcome the world is thereby sadly weakened. That which gives salt its value is its saltness, and when that quality is lost by it, men cast it from them and trample it underfoot. Our peculiarities as Christians are the very elements of our power. By these it is that the Church has its aggressive force and purifying influence upon the world.
3. Learn, in conclusion, the limited power of the enemies of Gods people. The spoliation of Jerusalem by Antiochus was to be only for a season. The world-tyrant could only go a certain length. God is stronger than the mightiest man; and so to the people of God who continue faithful unto Him there is a limit to calamity. The longest night is followed by the dawn. As the proverb has it, Time and the hour run through the roughest day.
Then be patient, be uncompromising, be courageous. (William M. Taylor, D.D.)
Vision of the Ram and the He-Goat
This second vision of Daniel came to him in the third year of the reign of King Belshazzar. If the first year of
Belshazzar, during which Daniel had his first vision, corresponded with the seventh year of his father Nabonidus, the year following that in which
Media was conquered by Cyrus the third year of Belshazzar would be the tenth year of Nabonidus, and so about 646 B.C. The scene of the vision was
Shushan, or Susa, the capital of Elam, and afterwards one of the chief residences of the Persian kings. Shushan, which means a lily, may have been so called from the many white lilies which grew in its neighbourhood.
The language of Daniel leaves it doubtful whether, when he received the vision, he was present at Shushan in the body or only in the spirit, like to
Ezekiel when he was removed to Jerusalem to see the causes of his impending doom (Eze 8:1-18). As Elam, which lay to the east of Babylonia, seems to have become a tributary province of the empire in the days of
Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel as the prime minister would sometimes probably visit Shushan its capital: but as the history of Elam during this period is very obscure, it would be hazardous to affirm that he was actually present in Shushan when he received the vision, although it seems to me that he might. The likelihood seems to be that Cyrus would leave Elam untouched, not only until after the conquest of Media, Lydia, and Persia, but also until after he had made adequate preparations for the more formidable task of conquering the great Babylonian empire. In that case Daniel might be in
Shushan in the tenth year of Nabonidus, which we have supposed to be the third year of his son Belshazzar, in connection with the mustering of the forces of Elam against Cyrus; and his actual presence there for the purposes of defence would give peculiar point and significance to the vision.. The first thing in the vision which met the eye of the ecstatic Daniel was a ram with two horns (v. 3, 4). The river Ulai (the Eulaeus of the
Greeks) before which the ram stood, apparently on the opposite side of the stream, seems to have been a large artificial canal, some nine hundred feet broad, though it is now dry, which left the Choaspes at Pat Pul, about twenty miles north-west of Susa, passed close by the town of Susa on the north or north-east, and afterwards joined the Coprates (Driver). In connection with the ram there is in the original, the numeral one, to bring into relief the fact that the ram had two horns. The ram is the symbol of the
Medo-Persian empire, as the angel Gabriel said to Daniel: The ram which thou sawest that had two horns, they are the kings of Media and Persia. This symbol corresponds with that of the arms and breast of silver in the image of Nebuchadnezzars dream, and with that of the bear raised up on one side in the first vision of Daniel. The two horns, which represent the kingdoms of Media and Persia, were both high or conspicuous horns, while the horn which was higher than the other, and which came up after it, represents the kingdom of Persia, which until the time of Cyrus was but a tributary of Media, but which grew and became the more powerful and conspicuous member of the united kingdom. This is seen in the fact that at the first, as in this book, the empire is spoken of as that of the Medes and Persians, but afterwards, as in the book of Esther, as that of the Persians and the Medes (Est 1:3; Est 1:14; Est 1:18-19). As the symbol of the ram with the two horns here represents the Medo-Persian empire, it is strange that anyone should explain the symbol of Nebuchadnezzars dream and that of Daniels first vision to mean the Medes alone. The idea of a Median empire succeeding the Babylonian is, as the higher critics admit, a gross historical blunder; but then they ascribe the blunder, which they themselves have created, to the ignorance of the author, and apply to their own workmanship the well-sounding name of scientific criticism. As Daniel looked at the ram with the two horns on the other side of the Ulai, he saw it pushing or butting westward, and northward and southward, and overthrowing all the beasts which came in its way, and glorying in its crushing and victorious power. This is a striking description of the conquests and spirit of the Medo-Persian empire. In the west it vanquished Babylon and Syria; in the north Lydia, Armenia, and the Scythian nations; and in the south part of Arabia, Egypt, and Ethiopia. It was more of a world-empire than Babylon, and for a time resistless in its conquering career, and became in an eminent degree a despotic and vainglorious power. The next part of the vision relates to the he-goat (v. 5, 8). This is the interpretation given by Gabriel to Daniel: And the rough he-goat is the king of Greece: and the great horn that is between his eyes is the first king. And as for that which was broken, in the place whereof four stood up, four kingdoms shall stand up out of the nation, but not with his power. The he-goat with its one great horn at the first, and afterwards with its four notable horns, the symbol of the Graeco-Macedonian empire, corresponds with the belly and thighs of brass of the image in Nebuchadnezzars dream, and with the four-winged leopard with four heads in Daniels first vision. There is a likeness of a he-goat with one notable horn between its eyes still to be seen in the sculptures at Persepolis. The first king of the GraceMacedonian empire, symbolised by the one great horn between the eyes, is Alexander the Great. This remarkable man, who at thirteen became for three years the pupil of the famous Aristotle, was born in 356 B.C., and ascended the throne of Macedonia in 336 B.C., when he was twenty years of age. Within two years after his coronation he had made himself the recognised leader of the Grecian peoples; and in 334 B.C., he crossed the Hellespont to overthrow the Medo-Persian empire with not more perhaps than 30,000 infantry and 4,000 cavalry, and began the struggle by completely routing the Persians in battle at the Granicus. He then overran and subdued a large part of Asia Minor, and in 333 B.C. dealt a crushing blow to the immense army of Darius at Issus in Cilicia. Instead of pursuing the beaten Darius the youthful conqueror marched southward through Syria and Palestine, taking Tyre after a siege of seven months, and Gaza after a siege of two, and entered Egypt, where he not only overthrew the Persian rule, but founded the city of Alexandria for his new kingdom. In 331 B.C. he left Egypt and hastened with all speed through Palestine and Syria to Thapsacus, where he crossed the Euphrates, and then onwards to the Tigris, below Nineveh, which he crossed without opposition. Some days after Alexander encountered the army of Darius, said to be more than a million in number, posted on a broad plain stretching from Guagamela to Arbela, and completely routed it, and thus practically ended the Medo-Persian empire, which had lasted for a period of 218 years. In the following year, 330 B.C., Darius, after he had fled to Susa, then to Persepolis (Pasargadae), and then to Ecbatana, three of the royal residences of the Persian kings, made his escape into Bactria, where he was assassinated. In three years the little king of Macedonia had made himself master of the vast Medo-Persian empire. The rapidity of his movements is aptly likened to that of a four-winged leopard in the first vision, and in this to that of a he-goat bounding along without touching the ground. His attacks on the armies of Darius were like those of the he-goat on the ram with the two horns. Darius, like the ram, had no power to resist him; and Alexander, like the he-goat, cast him down to the ground, and trampled upon him; and there was none to deliver the ram out of his hand. Alexander, too, like the he-goat, magnified himself exceedingly. His extraordinary successes impressed him with the idea that he must be more than human; and, to settle the matter, when he was in Egypt, he sent to enquire of the oracle of Ammon, which, knowing what would please the vainglorious conqueror, gave the answer that he was the son, not of Philip, but of Zeus. Hence, to the disgust of many of his followers, he claimed to be divine, and expected to be worshipped with divine honours. And he, like the great horn, was broken in his strength. He was cut off at Babylon by fever, aggravated by intemperance, when in the midst of his successes, and not yet thirty-three years of age. After the breaking of the great horn the four notable horns, which came up towards the four winds of Heaven, are explained by Gabriel to be four kingdoms that would stand up out of the nation, but not with his power. The four horns of the-he-goat correspond with the four heads of the leopard in the first vision. Alexander the Great died in 323 B.C.; and for twenty-two years after the empire was in a condition of conflict and confusion; but in 301 B.C. it was divided into four kingdoms, all of which were weaker than the original empire. Seleucus got what may be called the eastern kingdom of Syria, Babylonia, and the countries as far as India; Cassander, the western kingdom of Macedonia and Greece; Lysimachus, the northern kingdom of Thrace and Bithynia; and Ptolemy, the southern kingdom of Egypt, Palestine, and Arabia Petrea. These four kingdoms were towards the four winds of Heaven. The little horn is admitted on all hands to be Antiochus Epiphanes, who seized the throne of Syria in 175 B.C., in the absence of his nephew Demetrius, the rightful heir. He might be called a little horn, partly from the depressed state of the kingdom of Syria at the time, and partly from his own depressed state, as he had been hostage at Rome for the seven preceding years. In the eyes of the world such a king would be very insignificant. The period in which he would arise is said to be in the latter time of the kingdom (the Graeco-Macedonian empire), when the transgressors are come to the full, that is, when the Jewish people had filled up the cup of their iniquity. Many of the Jews with their high priest apostatised in the early days of Antiochus, and adopted the heathen customs of the Greeks. The period of the little horn is also said to belong to the time of the end. Gabriel said to Dan 5:17 : Understand O son of man; for the vision belongeth to the time of the end; and again, v.19: Behold I will make thee know what shall be in the latter time of theindignation; for it belongeth to the appointed time of the end. The time of the end seems to refer to the end of the present age, as distinguished from the future age of the Messiah. The appearance of the little horn, which would be in the latter time of Gods indignation against His chosen people, would show that men were living in the last stage of the old order of things, and that a new order of things was about to arise. Antiochus Epiphanes, the little horn which was to arise in the time of the end, is minutely and accurately described. He was a king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, noted for his hard-hearted cruelty and crafty dissimulation. Though a little horn at the first, he waxed exceeding great toward the glorious land. The south refers to Egypt, against which he undertook several campaigns, and would have made a complete conquest of it, had it not been for the interference of the Romans; the east refers to his military expeditions into Armenia, Bactria, and Elymais; and the glorious land, the glory of all lands in Ezekiel (Eze 20:6), refers to Palestine which he so grievously oppressed. His success was due, not so much to inherent ability as to the favouring providence of God and the practice of dissimulation. The one cause is pointed out in the words, And his power shall be mighty; but not by his own power; and the other in the words, And through his policy he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand. And in his successful career, he shall destroy the mighty ones and the holy people, that is, powerful foes in the world and the chosen people of Israel. The destructive power of the little horn is especially noted in reference to the holy people. We read: And it waxed great even to the host of heaven: and some of the host and of the stars it cast down to the ground and trampled upon them. The host of Heaven and the stars refer to the same, and not to different persons; and the stars here symbolise, not the angels but the chosen people, partly because the seed of Abraham had been likened to the stars for multitude (Gen 15:5), but mainly because they are sometimes called the Lords host (Exo 7:4; Exo 12:41). This was fulfilled in his two captures of Jerusalem, when many of the inhabitants were slain, and in his persecution of those who refused to abandon their religion (Jos. Ant. 12:3, 4). Yes, continues Daniel, it magnified itself, oven to the prince of the host; and it took away from him the continual burnt offering and the pines of his sanctuary was cut down. And the host was given over to it, together with the continual burnt offering through transgression; and it cast down truth to the ground, and it did its pleasure and prospered. This describes the attempt of Antiochus to extinguish the religion of the Jews. The arch-persecutor was opposed not only to the host but to the prince of the host. His aim was to blast the glory, and overthrow the power of the Most High. He plundered His temple, and caused the daily sacrifice to cease, and transformed the altar of Jehovah into an altar dedicated to the worship of idols. And because of the transgressions of the host Antiochus, like Nebuchadnezzar in reference to the destruction of Solomons temple, was permitted to do his pleasure and prosper. (T. Kirk.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
CHAPTER VIII
This chapter contains Daniel’s vision of the ram and he-goat,
1-14;
referring, as explained by the angel, to the Persian and
Grecian monarchies, 15-26.
The little horn mentioned in the ninth verse, (or fierce king,
as interpreted in the twenty-third,) is supposed by some to
denote Antiochus Epiphanes; but seems more properly to apply to
the Roman power in general, by which the polity and temple of
the Jews were destroyed, on account of the great transgressions
of these ancient people of God; and particularly because of
their very obstinate and unaccountable rejection of the
glorious doctrines of Christianity, which had been preached
among them by Jesus Christ and his apostles, and the truth of
which God had attested “by signs and wonders, and by divers
miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost.” Daniel is then informed
of the two thousand and three hundred prophetic days (that is,
years) which must elapse before the sanctuary be cleansed; or,
in other words, before righteousness shall prevail over the
whole earth. This period is supposed, with considerable
probability to have had its commencement when Alexander the
Great invaded Asia, in the year before Christ 334. This will
bring the close of it to about the end of the SIXTH chiliad of
the world; when, as already observed, some astonishing changes
are expected to take place in the moral condition of the human
race; when the power of Antichrist, both Papal and Mohammedan,
shall be totally annihilated, and universal dominion given to
the saints of the Most High. The chapter concludes with the
distress of Daniel on account of the fearful judgments with
which his country should be visited in after ages, 27.
NOTES ON CHAP. VIII
Verse 1. In the third year of the reign of – Belshazzar] We now come once more to the Hebrew, the Chaldee part of the book being finished. As the Chaldeans had a particular interest both in the history and prophecies from Da 2:4 to the end of Da 7:28, the whole is written in Chaldee, but as the prophecies which remain concern times posterior to the Chaldean monarchy, and principally relate to the Church and people of God generally, they are written in the Hebrew language, this being the tongue in which God chose to reveal all his counsels given under the Old Testament relative to the New.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
This follows then in time after the former. Those things that were meet for the Chaldees to know are recorded by Daniel in that tongue; but now he writes in Hebrew, which lasts to the end of the book, because these things relate to the church of Christ, Jew and Gentile, to the end of the world.
In the other vision he speaks of all the four monarchies, here only of the three first; this vision being both as a part and a comment upon the first.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
1. visiona higher kind ofrevelation than a dream.
after that . . . at thefirstthat in Da 7:1.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
In the third year of the reign of King Belshazzar,…. Which some say t was the last year of his reign; but, according to Ptolemy’s canon, he reigned seventeen years; and so says Josephus u; however, this, as well as the preceding vision, were seen before what happened recorded in the “fifth” and “sixth” chapters. The following vision was seen by Daniel, according to Bishop Usher w and Dean Prideaux x in the year of the world 3451 A.M., and 553 B.C. Mr. Bedford y places it in 552 B.C.; and Mr. Whiston z, very wrongly, in 537 B.C., two years after the death of Belshazzar. The prophet having, in the preceding chapters, related what concerned the Chaldeans, he wrote in the Chaldee language; but now, henceforward, writing of things which concerned the Jews more especially, and the church and people of God in later times, he writes in the Hebrew tongue.
A vision appeared unto me, even to me Daniel; and not another; which is said for the certainty of it; whether it was seen by him waking, or in a dream, as the former vision, is not certain; it seems rather as if he was awake at first, though he afterwards fell prostrate to the ground, and into a deep sleep; yet the Syriac version takes it to be a dream, and so renders the first clause of the next verse: “after that which appeared to me at the first”; at the beginning of Belshazzar’s reign, in the first year of it, recorded in the preceding chapter; which was concerning the four monarchies in general, and particularly concerning the fourth or Roman monarchy, of which a large account is given; and the Chaldean monarchy being near at an end, here the two monarchies between, namely, the Persian and Grecian, are in this vision described.
t Seder Olam Rabba, c. 28. p. 81. u Antiqu. l. 10. c. 11. sect. 4. w Annales Vet. Test. A. M. 3451. x Connexion, &c part 1. p. 117. y Scripture Chronlogy, p. 710. z Chronological Tables, cent. 10.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
The Vision
Dan 8:1, Dan 8:2 contain the historical introduction to this new revelation. This was given to Daniel in the third year of the reign of Belshazzar, and thus two years after the vision of the four world-kingdoms (Dan 7:1), but not in a dream as that was, but while he was awake. The words, I, Daniel, are neither a pleonasm (Hv.) nor a sign that the writer wished specially to give himself out for Daniel (Ewald), but expressly denote that Daniel continues to speak of himself in the first person (Kliefoth). The article in ( that which appeared) takes place of the relative , and the expression is concise for ( the vision which appeared); cf. Ewald’s Lehr. 335 a. ( at the first), as in Dan 9:21, in the general signification earlier, and in Gen 13:3; Gen 41:21; Gen 43:18, Gen 43:20; Isa 1:26, synonymous with ( in the beginning). Here the word points back to Daniel 7, and in Dan 9:21 it refers to Dan 8:16 of this chapter.
“In vision,” i.e., , not , Daniel was placed in the city of Susa, in the province of Elam (Elymas). By the words, “I saw in vision; and it came to pass when I saw,” which precede the specification of the scene of the vision, is indicated the fact that he was in Susa only in vision, and the misconception is sufficiently guarded against that Daniel was actually there in the body. This is acknowledge by v. Leng., Hitzig, Maurer, Hv., Hgstb., Kran., and Kliefoth, against Bertholdt and Rosenmller, who understand this, in connection with Dan 8:27, as meaning that Daniel was personally present in Susa to execute the king’s business, from which Bertholdt frames the charge against the pseudo-Daniel, that he was not conscious that Elam under Nabonned did not belong to Babylon, and that the royal palace at Susa had as yet no existence. But this accusation has no historical foundation. We have no accurate information whether under Belshazzar Elam was added to Babylon or the Chaldean empire. It is true that not Hengstenberg ( Beitr. i. p. 42f.) only has, with older theologians, concluded from the prophecies of Jer 49:34., compared with Jer 25:25 and Eze 32:24, that Nebuchadnezzar subjugated Susa, but Niebuhr also ( Gesch. Assurs, p. 211ff.) seeks from these and other passages of the O.T. to establish the view, that Nebuchadnezzar, after the death of Cyaxares (Uwakhshatra), to whom he owed allegiance, refused to do homage to his successor, and entered on a war against Media, which resulted in the annexation of Elam to his kingdom. But, on the contrary, Hvernick has well remarked, that the subjugation of Elam by Nebuchadnezzar can scarcely harmonize with the fact of the division of the Assyrian kingdom between the Babylonian king Nabopolassar and the Median king Cyaxares, whereby the former obtained the western and the latter the eastern half, and that from these passages of prophecy a subjugation of Elam by the Chaldeans cannot be concluded. Jeremiah announces neither in Jer 25:25 nor in Jer 49:34. a conquest of Elam by Nebuchadnezzar, but rather in Jer. 49 prophesies the complete destruction of Elam, or a divine judgment, in language which is much too strong and elevated for a mere making of it tributary and annexing it to a new state.
Besides, this passage in no respect requires that Susa and Elam should be regarded as provinces of the Chaldean kingdom, since the opinion that Daniel was in Susa engaged in some public business for the Chaldean king is founded only on a false interpretation of Dan 8:2, Dan 8:27. From the prophet’s having been placed in an ecstasy in the city of Susa, there follows nothing further than that this city was already at the time of the existing Chaldean kingdom a central-point of Elamitish or Persian power. And the more definite description of the situation of this city in the words, “which was in the province of Elam,” points decidedly to the time of Daniel, in which Susa as yet belonged to the province of Elam, while this province was made a satrapy, Susis, Susiana, now Chusistan, by the kings of Persia, and Susa became the capital of this province; therefore the capital Susa is not reckoned as situated in Elam by writers, who after this time distinguish between Susis (Susiana) and Elymas (Elam), as Strabo, xvi. 1. 17f., Pliny, hist. nat. vi. 27: Susianen ab Elymaide disterminat amnis Eulaeus .
Still more groundless is the assertion, that the city of Susa was not in existence in the time of Daniel, or, as Duncker ( Gesch. der Alterth. ii. p. 913, 3 Auf.) affirms, that Darius first removed the residence or seat of the king to Susa with the intention that it should become the permanent residence for him and his successors, the central-point of his kingdom and of his government, and that Pliny and Aelian say decidedly that Darius built Susa, the king’s city of Persia, and that the inscriptions confirm this saying. For, to begin with the latter statement, an inscription found in the ruins of a palace at Susa, according to the deciphering of Mordtmann ( in der D. morgl. Ztschr. xvi. pp. 123ff.), which Duncker cites as confirming his statement, contains only these words: “Thus speaks Artaxerxes the great king, the son of Darius the son of Achmenides Vistapa: This building my great-great-grandfather Darius erected; afterwards it was improved by Artaxerxes my grandfather.” This inscription thus confirms only the fact of the building of a palace in Susa by Darius, but nothing further, from which it is impossible to conclude that Darius first founded the city, or built the first tower in it. Still less does such an idea lie in the words of Aelian, nat. animal. i. 59: “Darius was proud of the erection of a celebrated building which he had raised in Susa.” And Pliny also, taken strictly, speaks only of the elevation of Susa to the rank of capital of the kingdom by Darius, which does not exclude the opinion that Susa was before this already a considerable town, and had a royal castle, in which Cyrus may have resided during several months of the year (according to Xenophon, Cyrop. viii. 6. 22, Anab. iii. 5. 15; cf. Brissonius, de regio Pers. princ. p. 88f.).
(Note: Pliny, hist. nat. vi. 27, says regarding Susiana, “ In qua vetus regia Presarum Susa a Dario Hystaspis filio condita, ” which may be understood as if he ascribed to Darius the founding of the city of Susa. But how little weight is to be given to this statement appears from the similar statement, hist. nat. vi. 14 (17): “ Ecbatana caput Mediae Seleucus rex condidit, ” which plainly contains an error, since Ecbatana, under the name of Achmeta, is mentioned (Ezr 6:2) in the time of Darius Hystaspes, in the tower of which the archives of the Persian kings were preserved.)
The founding of Susa, and of the old tower in Susa, reaches back into pre-historic times. According to Strabo, xv. 2. 3, Susa must have been built by Tithonos, the father of Memnon. With this the epithet , which Herod. vii. 151, v. 54, 53, and Aelian, nat. anim. xiii. 18, gives to the town of Susa, stands in unison. For if this proves nothing more than that in Susa there was a tomb of Memnon (Hv.), yet would this sufficiently prove that the city or its citadel existed from ancient times – times so ancient that the mythic Memnon lived and was buried there.
The city had its name , Lily, from the lilies which grew in great abundance in that region (Athen. Deipnos. xii. p. 409; Stephan. Byz., etc.), and had, according to Strabo, xv. 3. 2, a circuit of 120 (twelve English miles), and according to others, 200 stadia. Its palace was called Memnoneion, and was strongly fortified. Here was “the golden seat;” here also were “the apartments of Darius, which were adorned with gold,” as Aeschylos says ( Pers. 3. 4. 159, 160), “the widely-famed palace,” – the , as Diod. Sic. xvii. 65, expresses himself.
The ruins of Susa are not only a wilderness, inhabited by lions and hyaenas, on the eastern banks of the Shapur, between it and the Dizful, where three great mountains of ruins, from 80 to 100 feet high, raise themselves, showing the compass of the city, while eastward smaller heaps of ruins point out the remains of the city, which to this day bear the name Schusch; cf. Herz.’s Realenc. xvi. p. 263f., and Duncker, Gesch. d. Alt. ii. p. 942ff.
The designation of Elam as , a province, does not refer to a Chaldean province. , in Greek , formed the western part of the Persian satrapy of Susis or Susiana, which lay at the foot of the highlands of Iran, at the beginning of the valley of the Tigris and the Euphrates between Persia and Babylon, called by the Persians Uvaja, and by the Greeks Susis or Susiana after the capital, or Cissia after its inhabitants. It is bounded by the western border mountains of Persia and the Tigris, and on the south terminates in a arm, swampy and harbourless coast, which stretches from the mouth of the Tigris to that of the Aurvaiti (Oroatis). Strabo (xv. 732) says Susiana is inhabited by two races, the Cissaei and the Elymi; Herodotus (iii. 91, v. 49, vii. 62), on the contrary, names only the Cissaei as the inhabitants of the country of the same name. The saying put into circulation by Josephus ( Antt. i. 6. 4, ), that the Elamites are the primitive race of the Persians, has no historical foundation. The deep valley of the Tigris and the Euphrates was the country of the Semites. “The names of the towns and rivers of the country confirm the statements of Genesis, which names Elam among the sons of Shem, although the erecting of the Persian royal residence in Elam, and the long continuance of the Persian rule, could not but exercise, as it did, an influence on the manners and arts of the Semitish inhabitants” (Duncker, p. 942).
The further statement, that Daniel in vision was by the river Ulai, shows that Susa lay on the banks of the river. is the , Eulaeus, of the Greeks and Romans, of which Pliny says, “ circuit arcem Susorum ,” and which Arrian ( Exped. Alex. vii. 7) also mentions as a navigable river of Susis. On the contrary, Herodotus, i. 188, v. 49, 52, and Strabo, xv. 3, 4, place Susa on the river Choaspes. These contradictory statements are reconciled in the simplest manner by the supposition that Ulai, Eulaeus, was the Semitish, Choaspes the Aryan (Persian) name of the Kuran, which received the Shapur and Dizful. In favour of this, we have not only the circumstance that the name Choaspes is undoubtedly of Persian origin, while, on the other hand, is a word of Semitic formation; but still more, that Herodotus knows nothing whatever of the Eulaeus, while Ptolemy (vi. 3. 2) does not mention the Choaspes, but, on the contrary, two sources of the Eulaeus, the one in Media, the other in Susiana; and that what Herod. i. 188, says of the Choaspes, that the kings of Persia drink its water only, and caused it to be carried far after them, is mentioned by Pliny of the Eulus, h. n. vi. 27, and in 31:3 of the Choaspes and Eulus.
(Note: There is little probability in the supposition that Choaspes is the modern Kerrah or Kerkha, the Eulus the modern Dizful, as Susa lay between these two rivers (Ker Porter, Winer, Ruetschi in Herz.’s Realen. xv. 246), and receives no sufficient support from the bas relief of Kojundshik discovered by Layard, which represents the siege of a town lying between two rivers, since the identification of this town with Susa is a mere conjecture.)
Daniel was in spirit conveyed to Susa, that here in the future royal citadel of the Persian kingdom he might witness the destruction of this world-power, as Ezekiel was removed to Jerusalem that he might there see the judgment of its destruction. The placing of the prophet also on the river of Ulai is significant, yet it is not to be explained, with Kranichfeld, from Dan 8:3, Dan 8:6, “where the kingdom in question stands in the same relation to the flowing river as the four kingdoms in Dan 7:2 do to the sea.” For the geographically defined river Ulai has nothing in common with the sea as a symbol of the nations of the world (Dan 7:2). The Ulai is rather named as the place where afterwards the ram and the he-goat pushed against one another, and the shock followed, deciding the fate of the Persian kingdom.
As, the, the scene of the vision stands in intimate relation to its contents, so also the time at which the revelation was made to Daniel. With the third year of Belshazzar the dynasty of Nebuchadnezzar, the founder of the Babylonian world-kingdom, was extinguished. In this year Belshazzar, the son and successor of Nebuchadnezzar, died, and the sovereignty was transferred to a collateral branch, and finally to an intruder, under whom that world-kingdom, once so powerful, in a few years fell to pieces. Shortly before the death of Belshazzar the end of the Babylonian monarchy was thus to be seen, and the point of time, not very remote, which must end the Exile with the fall of Babylon. This point of time was altogether fitted to reveal to the prophet in a vision what would happen after the overthrow of Babylon, and after the termination of the Exile.
Dan 8:3-4 The vision. – Dan 8:3. Daniel first sees one ram, , standing by the river. The ( one) does not here stand for the indefinite article, but is a numeral, in contradistinction to the two horns which the one ram has. The two horns of the ram were high, but the one was higher than the other, the higher coming up later. does not mean the first, but the one, and the other; for the higher grew up last. This is not to be understood as if Daniel first saw the ram without horns, and then saw the horns grow up, and at length the one horn become higher than the other (v. Leng., Hitzig); but that from the first Daniel saw the ram with two horns, but afterwards saw the one horn grow higher than the other (Kliefoth). The angel (Dan 8:20) explains the ram with two horns of the king of Media and Persia. This does not mean that the two horns are to be understood (with Theodoret) of the two dynasties of Cyrus and of Darius Hystaspes; but since the ram represents the one kingdom of the Medes and Persians, so the two horns represent the people of the Medes and Persians, from the union of which the Medo-Persian kingdom grew up. Both nations were the horns, i.e., the power of the monarchy; therefore are they both high. The one horn, which afterwards grew up higher than the other, represents the Persians, who raised themselves above the Medians. A ram and goat, as emblems of kings, princes, chiefs, often occur; cf. Isa 14:9; Eze 34:17; Eze 39:18; Jer 50:8; Zec 10:3. In Bundehesch the guardian spirit of the Persian kingdom appears under the form of a ram with clean feet and sharp-pointed horns, and, according to Amm. Marcell. xix. 1, the Persian king, when he stood at the head of his army, bore, instead of the diadem, the head of a ram (cf. Hv.). The point of resemblance of this symbol is to be sought, not in the richness (the wool) and in the aggressive nature (the horns) of the ram (Theod., Venema), but the ram and the he-goat form, as Hofmann has justly remarked, a contrast to dull firmness and nimble lightness, as the bear and the panther.
The ram stands by the river and pushes toward the west, north, and south, but not toward the east. The river is thus not the one flowing on the east of Susa, for, standing there, the ram pushing toward the west from Susa would push against the capital of his kingdom, but the one flowing on the west; and the ram is to be conceived of as standing on the western bank of this river, from whence he pushed down with his horns all beasts before him, i.e., subdued all nations and kingdoms to his power in three regions of the earth. In the west he pushed against Babylon, Syria, and Asia Minor; in the south, Egypt; in the north, the Armenian and Scythian nations. These he subdued and incorporated in the Persian kingdom. He did not push toward the east – not because he could only push forwards and against that which was nearer, but not, without changing his position, backwards (Hitzig); nor because the Medo-Persians themselves came from the east (v. Leng., Kran.); not yet because the conquests of the Persians did not stretch toward the east (Hv.), for Cyrus and Darius subdued nations to the east of Persia even as far as to the Indus; but because, for the unfolding of the Medo-Persian monarchy as a world-power, its conquests in the east were subordinate, and therefore are not mentioned. The pushing toward the three world-regions corresponds to the three ribs in the mouth of the bear, Dan 7:5, and intimates that the Medo-Persian world-kingdom, in spite of the irresistibility of its arms, did not, however, extend its power into all the regions of the world. , to push, of beast, Exo 21:28, in the Piel figuratively is used of nations, Deu 33:17; Psa 44:6. is potentialis : could not stand. The masculine is here used, because ( beasts) represents kingdoms and nations. , did according to his will, expresses arbitrary conduct, a despotic behaviour. , became great. The word does not mean to become haughty, for , in his heart, is not added here as it is in Psa 44:25, but to magnify the action. It is equivalent to in Joe 2:20 ( hath done great things), and Psa 126:2-3, in the sense of to become great, powerful; cf. Dan 8:8.
Dan 8:5-7 After Daniel had for a while contemplated the conduct of the ram, he saw a he-goat come from the west over the earth, run with furious might against the two-horned ram, and throw it to the ground and tread upon it. The he-goat, according to the interpretation of the angel, Dan 8:21, represents the king of Javan (Greece and Macedonia) – not the person of the king (Gesen.), but the kingship of Javan; for, according to Dan 8:21, the great horn of the goat symbolizes the first king, and thus the goat itself cannot represent a separate king. The goat comes from the west; for Macedonia lay to the west of Susa or Persia. Its coming over the earth is more definitely denoted by the expression , and he was not touching the earth, i.e., as he hastened over it in his flight. This remark corresponds with the four wings of the leopard, Dan 7:6. The goat had between its eyes ; i.e., not a horn of vision, a horn such as a goat naturally has, but here only in vision (Hofm., Klief.). This interpretation would render an altogether useless addition, since the goat itself, only seen in vision, is described as it appeared in the vision. For the right explanation of the expression reference must be made to Dan 8:8, where, instead of horn of vision, there is used the expression ( the great horn). Accordingly has the meaning of , in the Keri , 2Sa 23:21, a man of countenance or sight (cf. Targ. Est 2:2): a horn of sight, consideration, of considerable greatness; (lxx, Theodot.), which Theodoret explains by .
The horn was between the eyes, i.e., in the middle of the forehead, the centre of its whole strength, and represents, according to Dan 8:21, the first king, i.e., the founder of the Javanic world-kingdom, or the dynasty of this kingdom represented by him. The he-goat ran up against the ram, the possessor of the two horns, i.e., the two-horned ram by the river Ulai, in the fire of his anger, i.e., in the glowing anger which gave him his strength, and with the greatest fury threw him down. The prophet adds, “And I saw him come close unto the ram,” as giving prominence to the chief matter, and then further describes its complete destruction. It broke in pieces both of the horns, which the ram still had, i.e., the power of the Medes and Persians, the two component elements of the Persian world-kingdom. This representation proves itself to be genuine prophecy, whilst an author writing ex eventu would have spoken of the horn representing the power of the Medes as assailed and overthrown earlier by that other horn (see under Dan 7:8, Dan 7:20). The pushing and trampling down by the Ulai is explained from the idea of the prophecy, according to which the power of the ram is destroyed at the central seat of its might, without reference to the historical course of the victories by which Alexander the Great completed the subjugation of the Persian monarchy. In the concluding passage, Dan 8:7, the complete destruction is described in the words of the fourth verse, to express the idea of righteous retribution. As the Medo-Persian had crushed the other kingdoms, so now it also was itself destroyed.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| The Vision of the Ram and Goat. | B. C. 553. |
1 In the third year of the reign of king Belshazzar a vision appeared unto me, even unto me Daniel, after that which appeared unto me at the first. 2 And I saw in a vision; and it came to pass, when I saw, that I was at Shushan in the palace, which is in the province of Elam; and I saw in a vision, and I was by the river of Ulai. 3 Then I lifted up mine eyes, and saw, and, behold, there stood before the river a ram which had two horns: and the two horns were high; but one was higher than the other, and the higher came up last. 4 I saw the ram pushing westward, and northward, and southward; so that no beasts might stand before him, neither was there any that could deliver out of his hand; but he did according to his will, and became great. 5 And as I was considering, behold, a he goat came from the west on the face of the whole earth, and touched not the ground: and the goat had a notable horn between his eyes. 6 And he came to the ram that had two horns, which I had seen standing before the river, and ran unto him in the fury of his power. 7 And I saw him come close unto the ram, and he was moved with choler against him, and smote the ram, and brake his two horns: and there was no power in the ram to stand before him, but he cast him down to the ground, and stamped upon him: and there was none that could deliver the ram out of his hand. 8 Therefore the he goat waxed very great: and when he was strong, the great horn was broken; and for it came up four notable ones toward the four winds of heaven. 9 And out of one of them came forth a little horn, which waxed exceeding great, toward the south, and toward the east, and toward the pleasant land. 10 And it waxed great, even to the host of heaven; and it cast down some of the host and of the stars to the ground, and stamped upon them. 11 Yea, he magnified himself even to the prince of the host, and by him the daily sacrifice was taken away, and the place of his sanctuary was cast down. 12 And a host was given him against the daily sacrifice by reason of transgression, and it cast down the truth to the ground; and it practised, and prospered. 13 Then I heard one saint speaking, and another saint said unto that certain saint which spake, How long shall be the vision concerning the daily sacrifice, and the transgression of desolation, to give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot? 14 And he said unto me, Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.
Here is, I. The date of this vision, v. 1. It was in the third year of the reign of Belshazzar, which proved to be his last year, as many reckon; so that this chapter also should be, in order of time, before the fifth. That Daniel might not be surprised at the destruction of Babylon, now at hand, God gives him a foresight of the destruction of other kingdoms hereafter, which in their day had been as potent as that of Babylon. Could we foresee the changes that shall be hereafter, when we are gone, we should the less admire, and be less affected with, the changes in our own day; for that which is done is that which shall be done, Eccl. i. 9. Then it was that a vision appeared to me, even to me, Daniel. Here he solemnly attests the truth of it: it was to him, even to him, that the vision was shown; he was the eye-witness of it. And this vision puts him in mind of a former vision which appeared to him at the first, in the first year of this reign, which he makes mention of because this vision was an explication and confirmation of that, and points at many of the same events. That seems to have been a dream, a vision in his sleep; this seems to have been when he was awake.
II. The scene of this vision. The place where that was laid was in Shushan the palace, one of the royal seats of the kings of Persia, situated on the banks of the river Ulai, which surrounded the city; it was in the province of Elam, that part of Persia which lay next to Babylon. Daniel was not there in person, for he was now in Babylon, a captive, in some employment under Belshazzar, and might not go to such a distant country, especially being now an enemy’s country. But he was there in vision; as Ezekiel, when a captive in Babylon, was often brought, in the spirit, to the land of Israel. Note, The soul may be a liberty when the body is in captivity; for, when we are bound, the Spirit of the Lord is not bound. The vision related to that country, and therefore there he was made to fancy himself to be as strongly as if he had really been there.
III. The vision itself and the process of it.
1. He saw a ram with two horns, v. 3. This was the second monarchy, of which the kingdoms of Media and Persia were the two horns. The horns were very high; but that which came up last was the higher, and got the start of the former. So the last shall be first, and the first last. The kingdom of Persia, which rose last, in Cyrus, became more eminent than that of the Medes.
2. He saw this ram pushing all about him with his horns (v. 4), westward (towards Babylon, Syria, Greece, and Asia the less), northward (towards the Lydians, Armenians, and Scythians), and southward (towards Arabia, Ethiopia, and Egypt), for all these nations did the Persian empire, one time or other, make attempts upon for the enlarging of their dominion. And at last he became so powerful that no beasts might stand before him. This ram, though of a species of animal often preyed upon, became formidable even to the beasts of prey themselves, so that there was no standing before him, no escaping him, none that could deliver out of his hand, but all must yield to him: the kings of Persia did according to their will, prospered in all their ways abroad, had an uncontrollable power at home, and became great. He thought himself great because he did what he would; but to do good is that which makes men truly great.
3. He saw this ram overcome by a he-goat. He was considering the ram (wondering that so weak an animal should come to be so prevalent) and thinking what would be the issue; and, behold, a he-goat came, v. 5. This was Alexander the Great, the son of Philip king of Macedonia. He came from the west, from Greece, which lay west from Persia. He fetched a great compass with his army: he came upon the face of the whole earth; he did in effect conquer the world, and then sat down and wept because there was not another world to be conquered. Unus Pello juveni non sufficit orbis–One world was too little for the youth of Pell. This he-goat (a creature famed for comeliness in going, Prov. xxx. 31) went on with incredible swiftness, so that he touched not the ground, so lightly did he move; he rather seemed to fly above the ground than to go upon the ground; or none touched him in the earth, that is, he met with little or no opposition. This he-goat, or buck, had a notable horn between his eyes, like a unicorn. He had strength, and knew his own strength; he saw himself a match for all his neighbours. Alexander pushed his conquests on so fast, and with so much fury, that none of the kingdoms he attacked had courage to make a stand, or give check to the progress of his victorious arms. In six years he made himself master of the greatest part of the then known world. Well might he be called a notable horn, for his name still lives in history as the name of one of the most celebrated commanders in war that ever the world knew. Alexander’s victories and achievements are still the entertainment of the ingenious. This he-goat came to the ram that had two horns, v. 6. Alexander with his victorious army attacked the kingdom of Persia, an army consisting of no more than 30,000 foot and 5000 horse. He ran unto him, to surprise him ere he could get intelligence of his motions, in the fury of his power. He came close to the ram. Alexander with his army came up with Darius Codomannus, then emperor of Persia, being moved with choler against him, v. 7. It was with the greatest violence that Alexander pushed on his war against Darius, who, though he brought vast numbers into the field, yet, for want of skill, was an unequal match for him, so that Alexander was too hard for him whenever he engaged him, smote him, cast him down to the ground, and stamped upon him, which three expressions, some think, refer to the three famous victories that Alexander obtained over Darius, at Granicus, at Issus, and at Arbela, by which he was at length totally routed, having, in the last battle, had 600,000 men killed, so that Alexander became absolute master of all the Persian empire, broke his two horns, the kingdoms of Media and Persia. The ram that had destroyed all before him (v. 4) now is himself destroyed; Darius has no power to stand before Alexander, not has he any friends or allies to help to deliver him out of his hand. Note, Those kingdoms which, when they had power, abused it, and, because none could oppose them, withheld not themselves from the doing of any wrong, may expect to have their power at length taken from them, and to be served in their own kind, Isa. xxxiii. 1.
4. He saw the he-goat made hereby very considerable; but the great horn, that had done all this execution, was broken, v. 8. Alexander was about twenty years old when he began his wars. When he was about twenty-six he conquered Darius, and became master of the whole Persian empire; but when he was about thirty-two or thirty-three years of age, when he was strong, in his full strength, he was broken. He was not killed in war, in the bed of honour, but died of a drunken surfeit, or, as some suspect, by poison and left no child living behind him to enjoy that which he had endlessly laboured for, but left a lasting monument of the vanity of worldly pomp and power, and their insufficiency to make a man happy.
5. He saw this kingdom divided into four parts, and that instead of that one great horn there came up four notable ones, Alexander’s four captains, to whom he bequeathed his conquests; and he had so much that, when it was divided among four, they had each of them enough for any one man. These four notable horns were towards the four winds of heaven, the same with the four heads of the leopard (ch. vii. 6), the kingdoms of Syria and Egypt, Asia and Greece-Syria lying to the east, Greece to the west, Asia Minor to the north, and Egypt to the south. Note, Those that heap up riches know not who shall gather them, nor whose all those things shall be which they have provided.
6. He saw a little horn which became a great persecutor of the church and people of God; and this was the principal thing that was intended to be shown to him in this vision, as afterwards, ch. xi. 30, c. All agree that this was Antiochus Epiphanes (so he called himself)–the illustrious, but others called him Antiochus Epimanes—Antiochus the furious. He is called here (as before, <i>ch. vii. 8), a little horn, because he was in his original contemptible; there were others between him and the kingdom, and he was of a base servile disposition, had nothing in him of princely qualities, and had been for some time a hostage and prisoner at Rome, whence he made his escape, and, though, the youngest brother, and his elder living, got the kingdom. He waxed exceedingly great towards the south, for he seized upon Egypt, and towards the east, for he invaded Persia and Armenia. But that which is here especially taken notice of is the mischief that he did to the people of the Jews. They are not expressly named, or prophecies must not be too plain; but they are here so described that it would be easy for those who understood scripture-language to know who were meant; and the Jews, having notice of this before, might be awakened to prepare themselves and their children beforehand for these suffering trying times. (1.) He set himself against the pleasant land, the land of Israel, so called because it was the glory of all lands, for fruitfulness and all the delights of human life, but especially for the tokens of God’s presence in it, and its being blessed with divine revelations and institutions; it was Mount Zion that was beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, Ps. xlviii. 2. The pleasantness of that land was that there the Messiah was to be born, who would be both the consolation and the glory of his people Israel. Note, We have reason to reckon that a pleasant place which is a holy place, in which God dwells, and where we may have opportunity of communing with him. Surely, It is good to be here. (2.) He fought against the host of heaven, that is, the people of God, the church, which is the kingdom of heaven, the church-militant here on earth. The saints, being born from above, and citizens of heaven, and doing the will of God, by his grace, in some measure, as the angels of heaven do it, may be well called a heavenly host. Or the priests and Levites, who were employed in the service of the tabernacle, and there warred a good warfare, were this host of heaven. These Antiochus set himself against; he waxed great to the host of heaven, in opposition to them and in defiance of them. (3.) He cast down some of the host (that is, of the stars, for they are called the host of heaven) to the ground, and stamped upon them. Some of those that were most eminent both in church and state, that were burning and shining lights in their generation, he either forced to comply with his idolatries or put them to death; he got them into his hands, and then trampled upon them and triumphed over them; as good old Eleazar, and the seven brethren, whom he put to death with cruel tortures, because they would not eat swine’s flesh, 2 Mac. vi. 7. He gloried in it that herein he insulted Heaven itself and exalted his throne above the stars of God, Isa. xiv. 13. (4.) He magnified himself even to the prince of the host. He set himself against the high priest, Onias, whom he deprived of his dignity, or rather against God himself, who was Israel’s King of old, who reigns for ever Zion’s King, who himself heads his own host that fight his battles. Against him Antiochus magnified himself; as Pharaoh, when he said, Who is the Lord? Note, Those who persecute the people of God persecute God himself. (5.) He took away the daily sacrifice. The morning and evening lamb, which God appointed to be offered every day upon his altar to his honour, Antiochus forbade and restrained the offering of. No doubt he took away all other sacrifices, but only the daily sacrifice is mentioned, because that was the greatest loss of all, for in that they kept up their constant communion with God, which they preferred before that which is only occasional. God’s people reckon their daily sacrifices, their morning and evening exercises of devotion, the most needful of their daily business and the most delightful of their daily comforts, and would not for all the world part with them. (6.) He cast down the place of his sanctuary. He did not burn and demolish the temple, but he cast it down, when he profaned it, made it the temple of Jupiter Olympius, and set up his image in it. He also cast down the truth to the ground, trampled upon the book of the law, that word of truth, tore it, and burnt it, and did what he could to destroy it quite, that it might be lost and forgotten for ever. These were the projects of that wicked prince. In these he practised. And (would you think it?) in these he prospered. He carried the matter very far, seemed to have gained his point, and went near to extirpate that holy religion which God’s right hand had planted. But lest he or any other should triumph, as if herein he had prevailed against God himself and been too hard for him, the matter is here explained and set in a true light. [1.] He could not have done this if God had not permitted him to do it, could have had no power against Israel unless it had been given him from above. God put this power into his hand, and gave him a host against the daily sacrifice. God’s providence put that sword into his hand by which he was enabled thus to bear down all before him. Note, We ought to eye and own the hand of God in all the enterprises and all the successes of the church’s enemies against the church. They are but the rod in God’s hand. [2.] God would not have permitted it if his people had not provoked him to do so. It is by reason of transgression, the transgression of Israel, to correct them for that, that Antiochus is employed to give them all this trouble. Note, When the pleasant land and all its pleasant things are laid waste, it must be acknowledged that sin is the procuring cause of all the desolation. Who gave Jacob to the spoil? Did not the Lord, he against whom we have sinned? Isa. xlii. 24. The great transgression of the Jews after the captivity (when they were cured of idolatry) was a contempt and profanation of the holy things, snuffing at the service of God, bringing the torn and the lame for sacrifice, as if the table of the Lord were a contemptible thing (so we find Mal 1:7; Mal 1:8, c., and that the priests were guilty of this Mal 2:1Mal 2:8), and therefore God sent Antiochus to take away the daily sacrifice and cast down the place of his sanctuary. Note, It is just with God to deprive those of the privileges of his house who despise and profane them, and to make those know the worth of ordinances by the want of them who would not know it by the enjoyment of them.
7. He heard the time of this calamity limited and determined, not the time when it should come (that is not here fixed, because God would have his people always prepared for it), but how long it should last, that, when they had no more any prophets to tell them how long (Ps. lxxiv. 9, which psalm seems to have been calculated for this dark and doleful day), they might have this prophecy to give them a prospect of deliverance in due time. Now concerning this we have here,
(1.) The question asked concerning it, v. 13. Observe [1.] By whom the question was put: I heard one saint speaking to this purport, and then another saint seconded him. “O that we knew how long this trouble will last!” The angels here are called saints, for they are holy ones (ch. iv. 13), the holy myriads, Jude 14. The angels concern themselves in the affairs of the church, and enquire concerning them, if, as here, concerning its temporal salvations, much more do they desire to look into the great salvation, 1 Pet. i. 12. One saint spoke of the thing, and another enquired concerning it. Thus John, who lay in Christ’s bosom, was beckoned to by Peter to ask Christ a question, Joh 13:23; Joh 13:24. [2.] To whom the question was put. He said unto Palmoni that spoke. Some make this certain saint to be a superior angel who understood more than the rest, to whom therefore they came with their enquiries. Others make it to be the eternal Word, the Son of God. He is the unknown One. Palmoni seems to be compounded of Peloni Almoni, which is used (Ruth iv. 1) for Ho, such a one, and (2 Kings vi. 8) for such a place. Christ was yet the nameless One. Wherefore asked thou after my name, seeing it is secret? Judg. xiii. 18. He is the numberer of secrets (as some translate it), for from him there is nothing hidden–the wonderful numberer, so others; his name is called Wonderful. Note, If we would know the mind of God, we must apply to Jesus Christ, who lay in the bosom of the Father, and in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, not hidden from us, but hidden for us. [3.] The question itself that was asked: “How long shall be the vision concerning the daily sacrifice? How long shall the prohibition of it continue? How long shall the pleasant land be made unpleasant by that severe interdict? How long shall the transgression of desolation (the image of Jupiter), that great transgression which makes all our sacred things desolate, how long shall that stand in the temple? How long shall the sanctuary and the host, the holy place and the holy persons that minister in it, be trodden under foot by the oppressor?” Note, Angels are concerned for the prosperity of the church on earth and desirous to see an end of its desolations. The angels asked, for the satisfaction of Daniel, not doubting but he was desirous to know, how long these calamities should last? The question takes it for granted that they should not last always. The rod of the wicked shall not rest upon the lot of the righteous, though it may come upon their lot. Christ comforted himself in his sufferings with this, The things concerning me have an end (Luke xxii. 37), and so may the church in hers. But it is desirable to know how long they shall last, that we may provide accordingly.
(2.) The answer given to this question, v. 14. Christ gives instruction to the holy angels, for they are our fellow-servants; but here the answer was given to Daniel, because for his sake the question was asked: He said unto me. God sometimes gives in great favours to his people, in answer to the enquiries and requests of their friends for them. Now, [1.] Christ assures him that the trouble shall end; it shall continue 2300 days and no longer, so many evenings and mornings (so the word is), so many nychthemerai, so many natural days, reckoned, as in the beginning of Genesis, by the evenings and mornings, because it was the evening and the morning sacrifice that they most lamented the loss of, and thought the time passed very slowly while they were deprived of them. Some make the morning and the evening, in this number, to stand for two, and then 2300 evenings and as many mornings will make but 1150 days; and about so many days it was that the daily sacrifice was interrupted: and this comes nearer to the computation (ch. vii. 25) of a time, times, and the dividing of a time. But it is less forced to understand them of so many natural days; 2300 days make six years and three months, and about eighteen days; and just so long they reckon from the defection of the people, procured by Menelaus the high priest in the 142nd year of the kingdom of the Seleucid, the sixth month of that year, and the 6th day of the month (so Josephus dates it), to the cleansing of the sanctuary, and the reestablishment of religion among them, which was in the 148th year, the 9th month, and the 25th day of the month, 1 Mac. iv. 52. God reckons the time of his people’s afflictions he is afflicted. Rev. ii. 10, Thou shalt have tribulation ten days. [2.] He assures him that they shall see better days afterwards: Then shall the sanctuary be cleansed. Note, The cleansing of the sanctuary is a happy token for good to any people; when they begin to be reformed they will soon be relieved. Though the righteous God may, for the correction of his people, suffer his sanctuary to be profaned for a while, yet the jealous God will, for his own glory, see to the cleansing of it in due time. Christ died to cleanse his church, and he will so cleanse it as at length to present it blameless to himself.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
DANIEL – CHAPTER 8
VISION OF THE RAM AND HE-GOAT
Verses 1-14:
Verse 1 begins the Hebrew part of the book, where the Hebrew was exclusively used, instead of the Aramaic. The visions and prophecies of chapters 8-12 relate to Jerusalem, the Jews, and the covenant-people of Israel, as oppressed by the Gentiles and the anti-christ, until the Messiah descends a second time to reign supreme over all the earth. This vision came to Daniel about 530 B.C., about three years after the first vision, related ch. 7. It was in the third year of the reign of King Belshazzar, last of the Babylonian kings, Dan 7:1.
This chapter relates matters concerning the second and third world-wide Gentile Empires, the silver and brass kingdoms of Da ch. 2, and the bear and leopard kingdoms of Medo-Persia and the Macedonian or Grecian kingdom, Daniel ch. 7. At the time of this vision, Dan 8:1, the first Empire, head of Gold kingdom, presided over by Belshazzar, was nearing its end, Dan 5:30.
Verse 2 discloses that when this vision came to Daniel he was in the palace at Shushan, along the riverbank of the Ulai river. Though Shushan was then insignificant, it was to become the capital of Persia in the time of Cyrus. Daniel was not there in person beside the river, but transported there in the vision; Perhaps it was because synagogues were built near rivers, as they washed their hands before praying, Psa 137:1; The province of Elam was south of Media, west of Persia proper, and east of Babylon, Neh 1:1; Ezr 1:2-5.
Verse 3 states that there Daniel lifted his eyes and recognized along the riverbank a ram with two high horns, signifying two royal powers, or two different kingdoms near to each other, v. 20. One horn (royal power) was higher than the other, and it arose last. The kingdom of the Medes was the older, but that of Persia was the bolder, and ascended above that of Media, the more ancient kingdom. Darius was 62 years old when he began to reign and reigned only two years, as a weak king. The kingdom was almost completely in Cyrus’ hands, Dan 5:31; Dan 6:14; Dan 6:17; Dan 6:28. The ram here corresponds to the bear of Dan 7:5, symbolizing clumsy firmness, Jer 51:11. The one horn (royal power), “higher than the other,” here corresponds to the bear “raising itself on one side,” Dan 7:5; Ezr 1:2; Ezr 4:5; Ezr 1:5; Isa 13:17; Isa 21:2; Isa 44:28.
Verse 4 describes Daniel’s view of the ram, king of Medo-Persia, as he conquered provinces as he pushed out of the east from which he came, Isa 46:11, moving westward. There he subdued Babylon, Mesopotamia, Syria and Asia Manor. He then moved northward, conquering Colchis, Armenia, Iberia, and people about the Caspian Sea. Then he moved southward, overrunning Judea, Egypt, Ethiopia, Libyia, and India, under Cyrus. This ram did according to his own will, much as the antichrist will at his coming, Dan 5:19; Dan 11:3; Dan 11:6.
Verse 5 relates that as Daniel was pondering the ram scene, an he-goat came bounding through the air, out of the west, touching not the ground, just above the surface of the earth. The goat had one notable (huge protruding horn) between his eyes. The great horn was Alexander the Great, the first king, v. 21. This he-goat “touched not the ground,” in its swift movement, symbolizes the swift speed with which the Graeco-Macedonian armies conquered the world in less than 12 years. It corresponds to the leopard of Dan 7:6.
Verse 6 recounts that this he-goat came, by his own greedy will and choice, to attack the ram that had two horns that Daniel had seen standing by the river Ulai, v. 2. The he-goat with the notable horn between his two eyes attacked the ram with the intense fury of his power, to subdue and destroy him. It was at the river Granicas that Alexander fought his first successful battle against Darius, 334 B.C.
Verse 7 further explains that Daniel saw this one horned he-goat approach the two horned ram, moved or incited with choler, or desire for vengeance against him. So vicious did the one horned he goat strike the two horned ram that the ram had both horns broken and his whole body bruised and mangled and trampled into the earth by the he-goat. The immense armed host of Persia could not resist the vengeance-bent Grecians who had been treacherously treated when the Persian army had invaded their land in 330, 331 B.C. They of Persia were not able to resist the army of Alexander the Great, Psa 33:16-18.
Verse 8 adds that the he goat “waxed very great,” increased very rapidly in power and dominion. And when he was strong, the height of his might, the “great horn” was broken; The great horn (royal ruler) was Alexander, v. 21. See also Dan 4:31; Dan 5:10; 2Ch 26:16; Psa 82:6-7; Isa 28:9. And for it in its place came up (arose) four notable ones, kingdoms toward the four winds of heaven, or four parts of the earth, v. 22.
Verse 9 asserts that out of these four notable kingdoms came forth a “little horn” that waxed or expanded exceeding great toward the: 1) South, Dan 11:25; Dan 11:2) the east, Persia, and the pleasant land, Judea, the “glorious land,” Dan 11:16; Psa 48:2; Eze 20:6; Eze 20:15; Psa 132:13; Jer 3:19. From the then near historical point this alluded to the rise and spread of the power of Antiochus as he made his way from Egypt into Judea, about 175-164 B.C. See also concerning the four notable royal powers or horns the four kingdoms into which Alexander’s Empire was divided upon his death, Dan 8:21-22; Dan 7:6; Dan 11:21-35.
Verse 10 relates that this “little horn”, royal ruler, waxed great, even toward the host of heaven, of heavens appointed host, those Divinely charged in Jewish matters of worship, the holy people of God, v. 24; Dan 11:28. This one cast down some of the “host of heaven and the stars,” their Divinely appointed leaders, to the ground and stamped upon them, demeaned or destroyed them, expressing the pride and arrogance of the antichrist of whom Antiochus Epiphanes seems to be a symbol, with rebellion against God, as heathens have since the tower of Babel, Gen 11:1-9. This one “little horn” exalts himself above all that is called God, Isa 14:13-14; Rev 12:4.
Verse 11 explains that this “little horn”, tin-horn kingly ruler, magnified himself with pride, even to the prince or high priest of the host, to rule over God and His worship. And by him, his orders or mandate, the daily sacrifice was taken away (abolished) and the sanctuary of Jewish worship was dismantled or destroyed, with contempt, v. 25; Dan 7:8; Dan 11:36. As Antiochus Epiphanes did it, though it was prescribed in the law, Exo 29:38-39; so shall the antichrist, Dan 9:26-27; 2Th 2:4-8.
Verse 12 discloses that this “little horn,” royal person, was given “the host,” control over the sanctuary and morning and evening sacrifices of the Jewish worship of the holy people, Exo 29:38-39. This holy people was given into the hands of the “little horn,” to do with them as he pleased, which was to destroy them and their worship, v. 10, 13; Dan 11:6. He cast down the truth, trampled it under foot, upon the ground. He practiced and prospered for a time in suppressing the order of Jewish worship, v. 4; Dan 11:28; Dan 11:36; Isa 59:14; 2Th 2:4-10.
Verses 13, 14 state that Daniel heard one saint (true Jewish worshiper) speaking, and another saint (Jewish worshiper), inquired of him just how long the sanctuary of Jewish worship and those who administered the worship services and sacrifices would be given over to suppression by this “little horn” despot and his people, v. 9, 10; Dan 4:13-17, 1Pe 1:12. These two Jewish saints of the vision seem to represent angels in this vision who are giving information to answer questions in the mind of Daniel regarding his people and their worship under this “little horn” despot, as in Job 15:15; Psa 139:6-7; Heb 1:14. The question asked by one saint (angel) overseeing, watching the desecration or desolation of Jewish worship, was answered by direct explanation to Daniel, that the time would be 2300 days, after which the defiled or desolated sanctuary should be cleansed, from Antiochus Epiphanes’ desecration, a foreview of the same by the man of Sin, Dan 9:27; 2Th 2:4-9.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
Here Daniel relates another vision, differing from the former as a part from the whole. For God wished to show him first what various changes should happen before Christ’s advent. The second redemption was the beginning of a new life, since God then not only restored afresh his own Church, but as it were created a new people; and hence the departure from Babylon and the return to their country are called the second birth of the Church. But as God at that time afforded then only a taste of true and solid redemption, whenever the prophets treat of that deliverance, they extended their thoughts and their prophecies as far as the coming of Christ. God therefore, with great propriety, shows the Four Monarchies to His Prophet, lest the faithful should grow weary in beholding the world so often convulsed, and all but changing its figure and nature. Thus they would be subject to the most distressing cares, become a laughing stock to their enemies, and ever remain contemptible and mean, without the power to help themselves, under these constant innovations. The faithful, then, were forewarned concerning these Four Monarchies, lest they should suppose themselves rejected by God and deprived altogether of his care. But now God wished to show only one part to his Prophet. As the destruction of the Babylonian empire was at hand, and the second kingdom was approaching, this dominion also should speedily come to its close, and then God’s people should be reduced to the utmost extremity. And the chief object of this vision is to prepare the faithful to bear patiently the horrible tyranny of Antiochus, of which the Prophet treats in this chapter. Now, therefore, we understand the meaning of this prophet, where God speaks of only two Monarchies, for the kingdom of the Chaldees was soon to be abolished: he treats first of the Persian kingdom; and next, adds that of Macedon, but omits all others, and descends directly to Antiochus, king of Syria. He then declares the prevalence of the most wretched confusion in the Church; for the sanctuary should be deprived of its dignity, and the elect people everywhere slain, without sparing even innocent blood. We shall see also why the faithful were informed beforehand of these grievous and oppressive calamities, to induce them to look up to God when oppressed by such extreme darkness. And at this day this prophecy is useful to us, lest our courage should fail us in the extreme calamity of the Church, because a perpetual representation of the Church is depicted for us under that calamitous and mournful state. Although God often spares our infirmities, yet the Church is never free from many distresses, and unless we are prepared to undergo all contests, we shall never stand firm in the faith. This is the scope and explanation of the prophecy. I will defer the rest.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
DANIELS VISION OF THE RAM AND HE GOAT
Dan 8:1-27.
DR. CLARENCE McCARTNEY, Ex-Moderator of the Presbyterian General Assembly, tells us that when once delayed for some hours in the town of Dijon, France, he went into its venerable Cathedral.
Among the things seen there, this most profoundly impressed him,the finely wrought stone pulpit, and just underneath it a figure of the recording angel with tablet in one hand and a pen in the other. The face of the angel was upturned toward the pulpit waiting to hear and to record what the preacher should say.
Then McCartney reasons, Always that angel stands below our pulpits. He is not waiting to put down things which the congregation might like to record in pleasure or displeasure, but, whether or not the words of the preacher are true to the Gospel with which he is trusted.
That thought makes preaching serious business, and it should compel the conscientious man to be careful of his words and fairly confident of his position. While the Bible, as a Book, is extremely clear in statement and comparatively easy of comprehension, yet there are points, particularly in the prophetic Books, where only diligent study, aided by the guidance of the Holy Ghost, can save one from serious misunderstanding; and if that one be a preacher, from possible false teaching.
The Book of Daniel belongs in a peculiar way to that category. Its prophetic character, sweeping, as it does, in a preview, centuries and even millenniums, makes its meaning questionable at points; and so necessitates a combination of conscientious study, genuine courage, and above all, the guidance of the Holy Ghost.
Fortunately for the student, this chapter is a bit freer from danger in the matter than other chapters of the volume. This is due solely to the circumstance that an angel interpreted Daniels dream and the interpretation is dependable.
The dream here involved The Conquering Ram; A Furious He Goat, and A Horrible Little Horn.
THE CONQUERING RAM
The vision is carefully dated.
In the third year of the reign of king Belshazzar a vision appeared unto me, even unto me Daniel, after that which appeared unto me at the first (Dan 8:1).
There are those who hold to scorn this statement. They declare it is even doubtful that Belshazzar ever reigned at all. Consequently they regard this painstaking statement, a work of supererogation. But so often in human history, statements found in the Bible, to be disputed by some, are at last clearly proven, either by the archeological spade or the discovery of testimony from some secular, yet authoritative source, that he who attacks this careful dating on Daniels part, runs a decided risk of loss of reputation as a scholar or scientist.
The one thing that is in favor, at least, of Daniels statement in the matter, is the circumstance that seems to be increasingly clear, namely that Belshazzar acted as Vice Regent for the space of three full years.
So Daniel did not fall into the absurdity of an impossible date, such as would have been true had he said, In the fifth year, or the tenth year of the reign of king Belshazzar. The Bible, because of its moral demands, is a much hated Book. But when its enemies get down to the somewhat delicate endeavor of discovering faults in it, they find that they have entered upon a difficult task; and that the statements of Scripture remarkably respond to the tests of time. Many books are affected by time, as are eggs and milk; it addles them; but for this Book time results, as it does for wine; it only enriches its character. Divinely inspired dates are dependable.
The vision is also located.
It came to pass, when I saw, that I was at Shushan in the palace, which is in the province of Elam; and I saw in a vision, and I was by the river of Ulai.
The palace of Shushan is declared by Pliny and Arian to have been on the river Eulaeus; while Herodotus maintains that it was on the banks of the Choaspes. When it is remembered that one of these rivers is a branch of the other; and when it is further kept in mind that, in a dream, localities, events and personages may be brought together irrespective of their actual local proximity, we are still without occasion of criticism.
At the time Daniel had this dream he was a captive in Babylon, but like Joseph in Egypt, his character and competence had brought him to the highest office and honors. And yet, neither office nor honors could bring this man to forget his beloved homeland. In body he was a captive; in soul, he was free. In body he was in Babylon; but in spirit, in the land of Israel.
How like life is that! More than once, when in England or some other of the old countries, have I dreamed of home, and was as vividly in this pulpit, back in this city on the banks of the Mississippi, as I had ever been when fully awake. There is, therefore, nothing far-fetched in the inspired report. Like all revelation it runs true to both reason and experience.
The vision is related. Daniel even descends to minutiae, in the matter.
Then I lifted up mine eyes, and saw, and, behold, there stood before the river a ram which had two horns: and the two horns were high; but one was higher than the other, and the higher came up last.
I saw the ram pushing westward, and northward, and southward; so that no beasts might stand before him, neither was there any that could deliver out of his hand; but he did according to his will, and became great (Dan 8:3-4).
You have not forgotten, of course, that Nebuchadnezzar had two dreams. The first, recorded in the second chapter of this Book, was of the great figure that stood on a plain-head of gold; shoulders of silver; belly and thighs of brass; legs of iron; feet part of iron and part of clay; toes, iron mixed with miry clay.
The second dream of the king is recorded in the fourth chapter. It was of a great tree in the midst of the earth, of matchless height, reaching unto Heaven, adorned with fair leaves and laden with fruit, under the shadow of which the beasts of the field and the fowls of heaven dwelt, and all flesh was fed of it.
And when Daniel interpreted the two dreams he showed that they referred to the same set of facts. Possibly the second one was given of God in order to quiet any fears that either the king or the Prophet might have had concerning the meaning of the first.
So in Daniels experience a second dream is given that the points of parallelism might substantiate the first, for in this second dream a certain section of history is shown to parallel that of the first.
In Daniels first dream the Medo-Persian nation was like to a bear, raising itself up on one side; and the Grecian nation was symbolized by a leopard which had on the back of it four wings of a fowl; whereas in this second dream, Medo-Persia is represented by the ram with two horns, one higher than the other, for in this dual monarchy Persia had come up last, but had risen beyond its companion kingdom of Media.
The war the Medo-Persian king waged was westward, northward and southward. The armies of Cyrus swept toward the Mediterranean and Black seas, toward the Persian Gulf; and they marched victoriously on and on until all western Asia and Egypt were subject to them.
When it is remembered that Daniel uttered this prophecy long before the facts that followed it, inspiration has, in its fulfilment, a scientific demonstration. Moses wrote: When a Prophet speaketh in the Name of the Lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken, but the Prophet hath spoken it presumptuously (Deu 18:22).
While Jeremiah says: The Prophet which prophesieth of peace, when the word of the Prophet shall come to pass, then shall the Prophet be known, that the Lord hath truly sent him.
By both the negative and positive side of this law, Daniel was a Prophet indeed. For twenty-seven hundred years history has run into the mould of his prophecy. The conquering ram came, and his conquests are a record of secular history as well as of sacred prediction, and so the rise of Greece the he goat!
Once more the language of the Prophet is appropriate. The great God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter; and the dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof sure.
THE FURIOUS HE-GOAT
And as I was considering, behold, an he goat came from the west on the face of the whole earth, and touched not the ground: and the goat had a notable horn between his eyes.
And he came to the ram that had two horns, which I had seen standing before the river, and ran unto him in the fury of his power.
And I saw him come close unto the ram, and he was moved with choler against him, and smote the ram, and brake his two horns: and there was no power in the ram to stand before him, but he cast him down to the ground, and stamped upon him: and there was none that could deliver the ram out of his hand.
Therefore the he goat waxed very great: and when he was strong, the great horn was broken; and for it came up four notable ones toward the four winds of heaven (Dan 8:5-8).
The change of figures indicate forms of civilization. In this connection it is interesting to note that Nebuchadnezzars dream pictured world kingdoms, first as a great human figure made up of precious metals, so colossal and imposing in appearance as to lead the king to materialize his dream and set it up in the plain as an object worthy of worship. That was Humanismin its initial form.
His second dream was of a great tree, the wide-spreading branches of which were covered with beautiful leaves, provided at once shade, rest and fruit for all fleshNature worship!
Such is mans opinion of the civilization that he produces. In his sight it is both great and glorious. But when Daniel dreamed world governments took on bestial features instead, and he saw them under the voracious and brutal figures of a lion, a bear, a leopard, and a beast indescribable in nature and character.
It is a characteristic of false prophets to see beauty in world powers and to prate about constant improvement and the approaching perfection of civilization. It is an equal certainty that no true prophet ever speaks after that manner. He gives, not mans estimate, but Gods estimate of world kingdoms. They are not beautiful from the standpoint of Him who sees all and perfectly comprehends their bestial nature.
In this second dream of Daniels, the animals accepted as types of Medo-Persia and Greece are domestic. Sheep are such naturally docile animals that they are selected in Scripture as a type of saints; and yet, an infuriated ram is a warrior to be feared. A goat is by nature less domestic, and his feeding habits, failing to discern between the grass of Gods provision and bits of leather and other refuse of the earth, make it impossible for him to be selected as a type of saints. His domestication fits in to represent such a civilization as Greece enjoyed where letters and art as well as physical development and passion for pleasure reached their acme.
And yet it will be noted that these domesticated animals, types of new forms of civilization, come together in deadly combat, and notwithstanding the fact that they have a certain specie-relationship their fury knows no bounds, and the battle is to death.
I saw him (the he goat) * * smote the ram, and brake his two horns: and there was no power in the ram to stand before him, but he cast him down to the ground, and stamped upon him: and there was none that could deliver the ram out of his hand (Dan 8:7).
Here also prophecy was converted into history. The notable horn between the eyes of the he goat was Alexander the Great. He is the man who, rising up 334 years B.C., practically leaped across the Hellespont conquering and to conquer as he swept on with battle after battle until he had broken the power of Persia and Media combined, and became the undisputed monarch of the world. It is he of whom it has long been said that he wept because there were no more worlds to conquer. And when, at 32 years of age, he died as a result of a career that was as intemperate and beastly as his 12 years of battles had been brilliant, four of his generals divided the government between them, and Cassander, Lysimachus, Seleucus and Ptolemy appropriated the kingdoms of Syria, Egypt, Macedonia and Asia Minor, and so fulfilled this prophecy to the last letter.
Highly civilized nations, then, are not less destructive and cruel. Man knows nothing of a civilization further back than between 6,000 and 7,000 years. In other words, he has absolutely no information of any civilization more remote in time than that recorded in the Scriptures,a profound argument in favor not only of their veracity but of their completeness, and as we trace civilization, whether as sacredly recorded in the Scriptures or as exhumed from the archives of the past, we find that its supposed progress is not associated with an increasing disposition to peace.
I think it may be consented that Greece and Rome enjoyed higher forms of civilization than characterized Babylonia and Medio-Persia, but fighting, instead of decreasing, increased; and Miltiades, Alexander, and the Caesars made for themselves immortal reputation, not as statesmen but as warriors; not as philosophers, but as fighters!
This age carries no indication of war-cessation. On the contrary it is fast fulfilling the prophecy of the Saviour Himself of wars and rumors of wars for the last days.
Recently Kirby Page, a socialist, a representative of the American Association for the Advancement of Atheism in The World Tomorrow, published a summary of 555 replies to the questionnaire at Muskingham College, directed and edited by Prof. J. J. Smith. This questionnaire involved over forty questions concerning war. Among them this question.
Does the Bible predict wars until the final Coming of Christ?
Three hundred, thirty of these 555 answered Yes. Sixty-six answered No. One hundred, forty-four could not tell, and 15 refused to answer.
The probabilities are that the 144 were ignorant of the Bible, and the 66 were Modernists and consequently incapable of discerning its meaning. But it is a fair tribute to the Bible study of the day to find that 330, or considerably more than a majority of those to whom this question was submitted, answered unhesitatingly Yes, the Bible so predicts!
And, sad to say, the present prospect is for an early and frightful fulfilment of all that the Scriptures say upon that subject.
Two years ago Ludendorff prophesied that Europe would be in another war at this time. The world is congratulating itself that this prophecy has not found fulfilment so soon, although Japan and China, representing so large a part of Asia, are still in conflict. Russia has expressed her expectation of being ready for war to enforce her Communistic ideas upon the world by 1934. The best informed militarists of the earth are practically uniform in their agreement that the day of the next World Conflict is not far away.
No less an authority than David Lloyd George tells us that discoveries made almost at the end of the last war, had it not ended just when it did, would have produced horrors indescribable, and that when we have another, new terrors that no man ever dreamed, will drive us to a distraction past human imagination.
Prof. Lewin of Berlin University was reported a while ago as having said, There are now known 25 varieties of poison gas against which all antedotes and preventatives are useless.
Dr. W. Dyson tells us that If we cannot excise the war spirit we must be prepared for the adoption of still more appalling methods of destruction; for example, the liberation of disease germs, a systematic study of spreading pestilence, not to speak of a thousand kindred forms of destruction now being made ready for the next conflict.
Little wonder that one writer says, Unevangelized science knows no pity; nor yet that God remarks in Holy Scripture, When they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh.
THE HORRIBLE LITTLE HORN
And out of one of them came forth a little horn, which waxed exceeding great, toward the south, and toward the east, and toward the pleasant land.
And it waxed great, even to the host of heaven; and it cast down some of the host and of the stars to the ground, and stamped upon them.
Yea, he magnified himself even to the prince of the host, and by him the daily sacrifice was taken away, and the place of his sanctuary was cast down.
And an host was given him against the daily sacrifice by reason of transgression, and it cast down the truth to the ground; and it practised, and prospered (Dan 8:9-12).
Then the Heavenly saint interprets:
And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall stand up.
And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power: and he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper, and practise, and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people.
And through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand; and he shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many: he shall also stand up against the Prince of princes; but he shall be broken without hand.
And the vision of the evening and the morning which was told is true: wherefore shut thou up the vision; for it shall be for many days (Dan 8:23-26).
The origin of this little horn identifies it. It does not come out of Rome as did the diverse king of the seventh chapter, but is of Grecian descent instead. The fact is that the seventh chapter of Daniel compasses, as we have seen, the entire Gentile period including the final coming of the antichrist and the King of all the world, the Saviour.
But this eighth chapter ends with the breaking up of the Grecian government and the rise of Antiochus. There is so much in common between the character in Dan 7:24-26 and that one of Dan 8:9-12 that one is tempted, at first blush, to identify the two. But when it is remembered that in Daniels prophecy, and in fact, in practically all prophetic Scripture, Greece plays its part and passes from the scene of action forever, while Rome, last of the four world kingdoms, only breaks into bits as the feet break into toes, and abides in this somewhat shattered form, until the end of the Gentile age, it is easily understood that he who concluded the Grecian period, is only a prototype of the beast that shall come to place and power and exercise oppression in ((the end of this age.
We come, then, in this eighth chapter to
ANTIOCHUS-EPIPHANES, THE PROTOTYPE
Whether one read after the pre-or post-millennial writer, he finds them agreed that Daniel refers here to Antiochus Epiphanes and sets forth at one and the same time his history and presents him as the type of the man of sin. Perhaps no one in all human history, Judas himself not excepted, so strikingly symbolizes the beast of Revelation as did Antiochus Epiphanes.
Antiochus came into power as a usurper (Dan 11:21). He named himself Epiphanes, or the illustrious, and his oppressed subjects changed the descriptive epithet to Epimanes the mad or the insane.
On some of the coins he gave himself the title Theos, or god. A mouth speaking great things.
Like the antichrist, of whom he is the type, he made war against the saintsthe Jews, plundering Jerusalem and slaying 80,000 men, women and children; and carrying away 40,000 more, additional, as prisoners, he sold them into slavery. He plundered the sanctuary, blasphemed the Name of God, stole the gold and silver vessels, including the golden table and the altar of incense, rifled the subterraneous vaults, seizing at least 1800 talents of gold; and then to prove his utter contempt and hatred for the place even, as well as for the people who worshiped there, he sacrificed a sowthe most unclean animal,upon the holy altar, and sprinkled the temple with the broth thereof.
To further perfect himself as a prototype of the antichrist, he put down the Jewish feasts, abolished the Sabbath, did away with circumcision, struck a deadly blow against all the ordinances of the Jewish religion. He burned their sacred books, and drove a multitude of them to mountains and deserts and caves. He erected a temple to Zeus, over the very altar of Jehovah and commanded sacrifices to be presented there. Strangely enough he started these heathen sacrifices on Kisleu 25, or December 25, thus by anticipation, staining our Lords birthday.
He compelled even the Jews to bring their sacrifices to this altar on the pain of death if they refused, and more than one faithful Jew paid the price of martyrdom for refusal.
But, even as the antichrist, when he comes, will finally meet his fate at the hands of the true Christ, so Antiochus was headed for opposition and eventual trouble.
Mattathias, the priest of Modin, headed the first armed resistance and, like Moses in Egypt, he struck down, with his own hand, a brother Jew who was ready to obey the godless orders of Antiochus. When at last Mattathias died, Judas the Maccabee became the head of the company that Mattathias had led in revolt, and his brother Simon joined him in the leadership of the revolution.
While Antiochus was indulging himself in a licentious festival at Daphne, Judas defeated his leader.
The bankruptcy of the fortunes of Antiochus began from that time. Judas recaptured Jerusalem, restored and cleansed and reconsecrated the sanctuary, reinstating its ceremonials, and from that time the fortunes of Judaism waxed, and those of Epiphanes waned.
The very moment when he expected to carry a big force against Jerusalem and recapture it, a fatal malady struck him. Braving the sufferings of the same, he ordered his charioteer to drive him rapidly toward Jerusalem where he expected to crush all opposition; but the chariot, in its mad race, was overturned and Antiochus was flung to the earth and severely injured. A few days later, on the borders of Persia, he died, half insane with remorseful conscience. This was the rise and fall of this little horn.
As a type of the coming antichrist his conduct was well-nigh complete. Strangely enough, his history lasted a time, times, and half a time, forty and two months, one thousand two hundred sixty days, three years and a half. In fact, the type failed at no point.
He came to his supremacy by flatteries, he wore out the saints of God, he blasphemed the holy Temple, he profaned the Holy Name, and set himself forth as god. He sought to crush the entire people of God, and carried on for three years and a half, and then met a miserable fate!
Herein is the comfort of believers. The antichrist will surely come; his heavy hand of oppression will be upon Gods people again, upon the Jew; he will change times and seasons; he will desecrate holy places, convert them into bacchanalian hostelries; he will kill all who refuse his orders, but he will continue for three and a half years only, and then suddenly will be cut off without mercy.
Daniel concludes this chapter in the same perturbation its perusal superinduces for students of the same, he fainted, and was sick, astonished at the vision (Dan 8:27).
But, of course, Daniels Book does not terminate here. When we move into the ninth chapter we move toward that Blessed Hope, the Coming and final King, the King of Glory. And when once we merge from the darkness of mans administration into the dawning light of His promised Appearance, our despairing hearts will revive with hope.
Robert Louis Stevenson, in one of his articles, describes a ship caught in a storm off a rocky coast. Any moment it might strike and go to pieces. Terror reigned with all on board. One man, more daring than the rest, crawled through a perilous passage to the pilot house. Coming there he found the pilot lashed to his post, his hands on the wheel, and saw him turning the ship little by little to the open sea. When the pilot saw the terror-stricken face of the intruder, he smiled.
The man hurried back to the deck below, shouting as he came, Alls well! Alls well! I have seen the pilot and he smiled! Alls well!
The panic was averted; despair was changed to hope: fear and sorrow took wings; arid confidence and joy reigned supreme.
So when the antichrist has come and taken the helm of the world, has run it into the rocks and shoals, and threatened it with eternal disaster, suddenly another will appear, the Pilot divinely appointed; and when He has put His hand to the wheel, and the smile of His face is seen by the saints, then, oh, then, the world itself can become calm, contentment can be its conscious experience, for when Christ is once in possession and directs the destiny of the earth, every Christian in it can shout for joy, All is well!
Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley
HOMILETICS
SECT. XXVIII.ANTIOCHUS EPIPHANES, OR THE SYRIAN LITTLE HORN (Chap. Dan. 8:1-27)
This chapter presents to us another vision of Daniel vouchsafed to him in the reign of Belshazzar, but two years later than the preceding one, which is here mentioned as that which appeared to him at the first, or at an earlier period. See chap. Dan. 9:21, note ([215] The narrative is given in Hebrew, which is now resumed, and continues to be the language of the book to its conclusion, there being no more reference made to Chaldea, and what remains being intended only for Gods covenant people. This change in the language is a confirmation of the genuineness of the book.
[215] At the beginning (Dan. 8:21). (battekhillah), at the first, as in chap. Dan. 8:1; with the general signification, as Keil observes, of earlier, and synonymous with (barishonah), in the beginning, in Gen. 13:3; Gen. 41:21; Gen. 43:18; Gen. 43:20; Isa. 1:26.
The vision is represented as given when Daniel was in the province of Elam, another name for Persia, at the palace or royal residence of Shushan [216] or Susa, probably so called from the lilies that abounded in the region. He relates that at the time he was on the banks of the river Ulai [217]; but whether in the body, or, as Calvin and others, with great probability, suppose, in spirit, as Ezekiel was at Jerusalem in spirit while in body he was in Chaldea, appears uncertain. The quiet banks of this Persian stream, now long unknown, might be to Daniel what lonely Patmos was to the beloved disciple, who so much resembled him, having been chosen by him as a place of retirement for prayer and communion with God after his hours of public business in Shushan. Arise, and get thee into the plain, and there will I talk with thee.
[216] Shushan the palace. Shushan or Susa, now called Ss or Shoosh by the Arabs, was the chief city of the province of Elam, called Elymais by the Greeks, and, until Darius, is thought to have been part of the Babylonian dominion. Keil, however, says we have no accurate information whether under Belshazzar Elam was or was not added to Babylon or the Chaldean empire. At the time of Darius Susa belonged to the province of Elam, which had been made a satrapy by the kings of Persia, with Susa for its capital. Dr. Rule observes that the palace of Susa, as is evident from the ruins, was a different building from the citadel, the (habbirah) of the text. This was a strongly fortified building, towering over the city for its terror or its defence; while the palace, as is known by inscriptions, was built by Darius Hystaspis or Gushtasp, who only began to reign b.c. 521, perhaps thirty-two years after this vision. He reads: I was in Shushan, the citadel, as the city itself is called, either from the citadel proper, or because of its own great strength, the palace being described in Est. 1:5-6, &c., and called the house (or palace) of the king, situated in a garden, and sumptuously furnished, as being intended for state or pleasure, but not like a citadel for strength. The ruins of Susa are now only a wilderness, and inhabited by lions and hyenas, on the eastern banks of the Shapur, between it and the Dizful, both flowing into the Kuran, probably the same as the Ulai, or, according to its Aryan or Persian name, the Choaspes. Three great mountains of ruins, from eighty to a hundred feet high, show the compass of the city, while smaller heaps point out its remains.
[217] By the river of Ulai. Mentioned on the cylinder of Assurbanipal as the river of Shushan. Their wives, like bows and arrows, filled the vicinity of Shushan; their corpses I caused the Ulai to receive. Jerome, as well as the Vulgate and Theodotion, translate the words, at the gate of Ulai, remarking that Ulai is the name of a place or of a gate, and stating that at Shushan there is no river, but only the gate of that castle, although some make the word (oobhal) equivalent to (yoobhal), a flood. There had been such a river. Calvin observes that the Latin writers mention a river Eulus, and that he has no hesitation in understanding it to be intended here. Pliny says the river Eulus divides Susiana from Elymais.
This vision, like the preceding one, is related by Daniel in his own name, Daniel being now not a mere narrator of events, but a witness to what had been personally communicated to him. This also, like the other, was interpreted to Daniel, at his own request, by the Angel Gabriel [218], acting under the direction of One with the appearance of a man, probably, as Calvin thinks, the Son of God Himself, who was one day to be also the Son of Man [219]. It is called the vision of the evening and the morning, generally considered to be a title given to it on account of the expression in Dan. 8:14, Unto two thousand and three hundred days, literally, as in the margin, evening, morning [220].
[218] Gabriel. For remarks on this angelic messenger see under chap. Dan. 9:21.
[219] That certain saint (Dan. 8:13), (palmoni); according to Keil, a certain one, I know not who, as not being more particularly definable. Left untranslated in the Greek. The margin of E.V. has Palmoni; but adds, or the numberer of secrets, or the wonderful numberer. Pfaff, Junius, and Willet: a certain one, like peloni almoni, such a one (Rth. 4:1); Willet thinking the Hebrew words better joined on account of the ambiguous signification. Polanus understands it to mean secret, from (pele), wonderful, and (alam), to hide. colampadius translates the word an admirable or wonderful one, from (pele), a wonder, and (almoni), a certain one. Calvin also renders it wonderful, and thinks it certainly points to a person the superior of the angel who speaks, and that it denotes Christ Himself. Brightman has an excellent one; while Wintle adopts the marginal rendering.
[220] The vision of the evening and the morning (Dan. 8:26). (erebhboqer), like the (a night and day) of the Greeks (2Co. 11:25). According to Keil, who renders the phrase evening-morning, we are to understand whole days, consisting of morning and evening (twenty-four hours). So Bertholdt, Hvernick, &c., in opposition to Bleek, Ewald, Delitzsch, and others, who, understanding the reference to the morning and evening sacrifice of each day, make the number, not 2300 whole days, but 1150. Keil thinks the verbal import of the expression doubtful; but that the choice of so unusual a measure of time, derived from the two chief parts of the day, instead of the simple measure of time by days, probably originates with reference to the morning and evening sacrifice, by which the day was to be consecrated to the Lord, after Gen. 1:5; Gen. 1:8; Gen. 1:13, &c., where the days of the creation week are named and reckoned according to the succession of evening and morning.
The vision now given is that of the Ram and the He-goat, representing respectively the Persian and the Grecian empires. It connects itself both with Nebuchadnezzars great image and Daniels four beasts, the ram being the silver breast and arms of the image and the bear of Daniels vision, while the he-goat corresponds with the brazen belly and thighs of the former and the four horned leopards of the latter. The vision thus brings up before us the second and third of the four great monarchies.
The special and more immediate object of the vision was to acquaint Daniel, and through him his brethren the Jews, with calamities which should overtake them many years after their return to their own land, and the happy issue out of them at the appointed time. The vision was therefore to be sealed up, marked as true and certain, and carefully preserved for future use [221]. It is remarkable that, as in the former vision with reference to the New Testament Church, these troubles were to arise from a power called a little horn, but in this case proceeding not from the fourth beast or Roman Empire, but from the third or Grecian one, it being within its bounds that Judea lay. From the period mentioned for the continuance of this Little Horn and his persecution of the covenant people, two thousand three hundred days, as also from the manner in which it is again introduced (chap. Dan. 11:21, &c.), it has been supposed that it is intended to exhibit a twofold aspect, or to possess a typical character, the first and nearer power being the type of another more remote; as it is not uncommon in the prophecies of Scripture for two persons, things, or events to be predicted together in one and the same prophecy, the two standing related to each other as type and antitype, and seen together as in a kind of mental perspective [222]. By universal consent, the person mere immediately described is one of the kings of Syria, which constituted one of the four kingdoms formed out of Alexanders Grecian or Macedonian Empire. His name was Antiochus Epiphanes, or the Illustrious, the author of one of the bitterest persecutions that ever the sins of Israel brought upon their race. We have in the vision
[221] Shut up the vision (Dan. 8:26). (sethom), from (satham), to stop, to conclude, to hide; but not in the sense of keeping secret, or because it would be incomprehensible for the nearest times; but in the sense of keeping, as in archives. According to Keil and Kliefoth, the meaning is simply this: Preserve the revelation, not because it is not yet to be understood, also not for the purpose of keeping it secret, but that it may remain preserved for future times. So Chrysostom: Keep and preserve it faithfully. Cardinal Hugo understands it to mean: Commit it to memory. De Lyra: Commit it to writing. Bullinger: Seal it as a thing most true and certain. Willet: Keep it from the Chaldees and from carnal men. According to Junius, it was to intimate that the vision would be long in receiving its fulfilment. Calvin understood it to mean that men were not to doubt of its fulfilment. Dr. Rule thus paraphrases: Let nothing curiously tempt thee to break the seal, for that which God closes no creature has power to break open. Be not impatient to promulgate what thou art not able to explain; for neither is it necessary to publish what God has determined that none shall understand till the time to understand shall come. Seal it up, therefore, and let it be kept with care, every letter of it, that no rude handling obliterate the finest stroke.
[222] It cannot be disputed that here, in prophetic perspective, the time of the end is seen together with the period of the oppression of the people of God by Antiochus, and the first appearance of the Messiah with His return in glory to the final judgment, as the latter is the case also in chap. Dan. 2:34, &c., 44, &c., and Dan. 7:13; Dan. 7:26, &c. For in the last vision (chaps. 1012.) which Daniel saw, not only the time of the oppression of Antiochus and that of the last enemy are contemplated together as one, but also the whole contents of this one vision are, chap. Dan. 10:14, transferred to the end of the days.Keil.
I. The rise of this power. It was to exhibit this that the vision of the ram and the he-goat was introduced (Dan. 8:3-9). A ram is seen by the prophet, and is explained by the angel to denote the Medo-Persian Empire [223]; its two horns, of which the higher came up last, representing the Medes and Persians, who together constituted the empire, the former, in the person of Darius the Mede, taking possession immediately on the fall of Babylon, while the latter, who succeeded in the person of Cyrus, was the more powerful. This ram is represented as pushing westward, northward, and southward [224], so that none could stand before him; Cyrus having extended his conquests to Babylon, Syria, and Asia Minor on the west, to Armenia and Scythia in the north, and to Egypt in the south. He is, however, confronted by a he-goat who comes from the west, with a great horn between his eyes, and so swift as to appear not to touch the ground, and is interpreted by Gabriel to denote the king of Grecia [225]. The goat attacks the ram in great fury, breaks his two horns, and utterly crushes them under his feet; verified in history by the victories obtained over the Persians by the Greeks under Alexander the Great, the founder of the Greek Empire [226], and here represented as a notable horn [227] of the goat. His conquests over Persia were made with such rapidity as to be included within the space of six years, while his whole course of victory elsewhere was completed in six more, when he was arrested by death in the thirty-third year of his age. This horn being thus broken or snapt asunder [228], for it,or in its stead,came up four notable horns towards the four winds of heaven; interpreted by the angel to mean that on the death of the first king, Alexander the Great, four kingdoms should stand up out of the nation, but not in his power [229]; fulfilled in the well-known historical fact that, soon after Alexanders death, his vast empire came to be divided among his four principal generals, who ruled with a power greatly inferior to his own. These, as already indicated under the visions of the great image and the four beasts, were Antigonus, or, after the battle of Ipsus, Cassander, who ruled Macedonia and Greece; Lysimachus, who possessed Thrace and Asia Minor; Ptolemy Lagus, who took Egypt, Palestine, and Arabia Petraea; and Seleucus, who obtained Syria, Babylonia, and the Eastern countries as far as India; thus towards the four winds of heaven. It was out of the last of these that there came forth a Little Horn, making the most conspicuous figure in the vision; waxing exceeding great toward the south, and toward the east, and toward the pleasant land (Dan. 8:9). This was Antiochus, surnamed Epiphanes [230], the son, though not immediate successor, of Antigonus the Great, and the eighth who had reigned as king of Syria. He greatly extended the dominions of his father, almost gaining possession of Egypt, and seizing the pleasant land, [231] or Palestine, on whose account it is that he is introduced at all. It is especially from the exact agreement between the prophecy and this person that Porphyry was led to maintain that it was history and not prophecy at all, and that it had been written after the events by some one who wished to palm off his composition as that of Daniel the prophet. For more in regard to him and his rise as the Little Horn, see the prophecy in chap. Dan. 11:21, &c.
[223] A ram which had two horns. The kings of Media and Persia (Dan. 8:3; Dan. 8:20). A rams head of gold, says Dr. Cumming, chosen as the diadem of the Persian kings, alone sufficient to identify the symbol. The figure of a ram, the symbol of Persia, Dr. Rule tells us, has been found among the ruins of Persepolis. In the Zend book Bundehesh, the guardian spirit of the Persian kingdom is represented under the figure of a ram. Dr. Rule observes that the Medo-Persian conqueror of Shushan, a Babylonian stronghold, is here foretold; and thinks that it was perhaps as much the assurance produced in his mind in this vision as any second revelation in the night of the banquet, that enabled the prophet to declare the meaning of the writing on the wall.
[224] Pushing westward, and northward, and southward (Dan. 8:4). Dr. Cumming observes that Lydia and Babylon were subdued by Cyrus, and Egypt by his son Cambyses. Keil remarks that the ram is to be conceived of as standing on the western bank of the river flowing on the west of Susa, from whence he pushed down with his horns all beasts before him, i.e., subdued all nations and kingdoms to his power in three regions of the earth; in the west, Babylon, Syria, and Asia Minor; in the south, Egypt; in the north, the Armenian and Scythian nations. He did not push toward the east; not because, as Hvernick thinks, the conquests of the Persians did not stretch towards that quarter, for Cyrus and Darius subdued nations to the east of Persia even as far as to the Indus; but because, for the unfolding of the Medo-Persian monarchy as a world-power, its conquests in the east were subordinate, and therefore are not mentioned.
[225] An he-goat came from the west. The rough goat is the king of Grecia (Dan. 8:5; Dan. 8:21). Dr. Taylor remarks that the symbol of a goat often appears in connection with Macedonia, and was used as an emblem of that kingdom, its origin being ascribed to the tradition that Caremus, the first king of Mace-don, was led by a flock of goats to the spot on which he decided for the capital of his kingdom. Keil observes that the goat comes from the west, as Macedonia lay west of Susa or Persia; and its coming over the earth is more definitely denoted by the expression, he touched not the ground, i.e., as he hastened over it in his flight,the remark corresponding with the four wings of the leopard (chap. Dan. 7:6).
[226] The first king. The author of the first Book of Maccabees says that Alexander reigned in his stead (viz., that of Darius the Mede), the first over Greece. The author of this book, which is said to have been written originally in Hebrew, is thought to have compiled it partly from the memoirs collected by Judas Maccabus, and partly from those of John Hyrcanus, whose leadership began at the period where this book leaves off. Archdeacon Harrison remarks, after Mr. Forster (Mohammedanism Unveiled) that a clear reference is made by the author of that book to the prophecy regarding Antiochus Epiphanes.
[227] A notable horn. (keren khazuth), a a horn of sight, i.e., a horn to be looked at and contemplated with admiration. The parallel expression in Dan. 8:8, the great horn. Keil remarks that (khazuth) has the meaning of (mareh), in the keri (ish mareh) of 2Sa. 23:21, a man of countenance or sight; a horn of sight, consideration, or considerable greatness. Sept., . He made many wars, and won many strong-holds, and slew the kings of the earth, and went through to the ends of the earth, and took the spoils of many nations, insomuch that the earth was quiet before him; and he ruled over countries, and nations, and kings, who became tributary to him (1Ma. 1:2, &c.)
[228] The great horn was broken. Dr. Cumming, applying the words to Alexanders government rather than to himself, observes that the original term denotes snapt asunder; not gradually wasted away, nor desolated inch by inch till it disappeared. Alexanders government was terminated with his life. The expression, however, probably refers to Alexanders own death, which came upon him suddenly in the midst of his carousings in Babylon, the termination of his empire being the result of that event. Here as well as at chap. Dan. 11:4 the reference of the words to the sudden death of Alexander in the prime of his days, and when in the very height of his victorious career, cannot be disputed; and by the breaking of the horn we can only understand Alexanders death, and the breaking-up of the kingdom founded by him.Keil.
[229] For it came up four notable ones. Four kingdoms shall stand up out of the nation, but not in his power (Dan. 8:8; Dan. 8:22). (khazuth), sight, the noun used in Dan. 8:5, here employed as an adverb, conspicuously; there came forth four conspicuously in its place. According to the interpretation of the angel, however, these four horns, though notable and conspicuous, have not the power of the one great horn. They represent in themselves a considerable power, without, however, gaining the power of the one undivided kingdom.Keil. These four horns or kingdoms are the dynasties of the Diadochs, as they are called. Of these there were indeed five; but after the overthrow of Antigonus at the battle of Ipsus, 301 b.c., twenty-two years after the death of Alexander, for the first time they became in reality four kings, and divided the empire among themselves, as stated in the text All of them, however, says the historian Justin, abstained from the use of the insignia of their dignity while the sons of their king survived. So great was their veneration, that although they had royal wealth and resources, they cared not for the name of kings, so long as there existed a legitimate heir to Alexander.
[230] Out of one of them came forth a little horn (Dan. 8:9). Literally, Out of one of them came forth one horn out of littleness, i.e., from small beginnings. So Keil, Maurer, and others. The expression corresponds with (zeirah silqath), came up small, in chap. Dan. 7:8. The horn was to grow to great power from a small beginning. It was to be one horn, not several. The one of the four horns from which the Little Horn grew up has been acknowledged by all interpreters since Josephus to be the Syrian monarchy, and the horn itself to be Antiochus Epiphanes. There came out of them a wicked root, Antiochus, surnamed Epiphanes, son of Antiochus the king (1Ma. 1:10). Josephus says, Our nation suffered these calamities under Antiochus Epiphanes, as Daniel saw and wrote many years before what things should come to pass.
[231] The pleasant land (Dan. 8:9) (hatstsebhi), the beauty, delight, or ornament, as in chap. Dan. 11:16; Dan. 11:41; Dan. 11:45, where it has land or mountain connected with it. The name given to the land of Canaan, and perhaps to Jerusalem, its capital, from its pleasantness and beauty, but more especially from its being chosen as the land in which Jehovah was pleased to manifest Himself; hence, in chap. Dan. 11:45, the addition of the epithet holy. According to Keil, splendour, glory; the glorious land. So Calvin. The same word used as the name of the roe, from its pleasantness and beauty. The expeditions of Antiochus referred to in the text are thus related in the first Book of Maccabees, Now when the kingdom was established before Antiochus, he thought to reign over Egypt [in the south], that he might have the dominion of two realms. Wherefore he entered into Egypt with a great multitude, with chariots, and elephants, and horsemen, and a great navy; and made war against Ptolemy, king of Egypt, and he took the spoils thereof. And after that Antiochus had smitten Egypt, he returned again, and went up against Israel and Jerusalem with a great multitude (1Ma. 1:16-20).
II. His character. The notes given of him by Gabriel are:
1. Pride. He magnified himself even to (or against) the prince of the host, i.e., God Himself or the Messiah, called also the Prince of princes: He shall magnify himself in his heart, and shall stand up against the Prince of princes (Dan. 8:14; Dan. 8:25). The author of the second Book of Maccabees says, in like manner, that he thought he might command the waves of the sea and weigh the high mountains in a balance; so proud was he beyond the condition of men. The same book relates that when humbled in his last hours by the hand of God so heavily laid upon him, conscious of his past pride, he said, It is meet to be subject unto God; and a man that is mortal should not proudly think of himself as if he were God. Pride, and especially pride in relation to God, always a prominent feature in the description of Antichrist.
2. Fierceness. A king of fierce countenance (Dan. 8:23). This feature in his character sufficiently verified by his doings as related in the first Book of Maccabees. When he first came against Jerusalem, under the impression that the Jews had revolted, removing from Egypt in a furious mind, he took the city by force of arms, and commanded his men of war not to spare such as they met, and to slay such as went up upon the houses. Even with his last sickness upon him, he is said to have been still filled with pride, and to have breathed out fire in his rage against the Jews. This enemy was to be daring and shameless, without fear either of God or man.
3. Knowledge and penetration. Understanding dark sentences (Dan. 8:23). The exact meaning and application of this clause uncertain [232]. Bishop Newton thinks it denotes that the Little Horn should be a politic and artful as well as a formidable power. The second Book of Maccabees speaks of him as thinking in his pride to make the land navigable and the sea passable on foot, as if possessed of extraordinary knowledge or acquaintance with magical powers. He was to be clever, and possessing no ordinary powers of intellect. Even Satan is transformed into an angel of light.
[232] Understanding dark sentences. Literally, understanding mysteries; (khidhoth); but probably taken in a bad sense; concealing his purpose behind ambiguous words, using dissimulation, forming artifices. So Keil, who thinks the expression is interpreted in Dan. 8:25 by (mirmah), craft or deceit. The Sept. and Vulg. have, understanding problems or propositions. Luther refers the expression to his craftiness; while Calvin understands it also of his cleverness; not easy to be deceivedskilled in enigmas. So Martin (French): Of a penetrating spirit. Grotius interprets it of his knowledge of tricks, stratagems, and wiles; knowing in what way many of the Jews might be drawn away from their religion. Junius and Geier understand it as denoting his sagacity in investigating and finding out abstruse matters. Adam Clarke thinks the expression to meanlearned and skilful in all things relating to government and its intrigues, and apparently typical of Rome, whose legal learning is proverbial to the present time. R. Saadias understood it of his mastery of the dark sentences or enigmas of the principal kings of his time, viz., those of Greece, Rome, and Persia.
4. Policy and craft. Through his policy he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand, and by peace he shall destroy many (Dan. 8:25). Much of his success against the Jews appears as the result of this feature of his character [233]. His general, Apollonius, coming to Jerusalem with an army and pretending peace, forbore from his operations until the Sabbath, when, taking advantage of the Jewish habit of resting on that sacred day, he armed his men, and, rushing on the unprepared Jews, he slew them all (2 Maccabees 5) The enemy to be characterised by great ability to deceive. Paul speaks of all deceivableness of unrighteousness.
[233] Through his policy he shall cause craft to prosper (Dan. 8:25). (sechel), sagacity; generally used in a good sense; here apparently in a bad one,cunning. Through his cleverness his deceit should be successful. Great intelligence and cleverness to characterise both type and antitype. All deceivableness of unrighteousness. Satan transformed into an angel of light.
III. His doings. It waxed great even to (or against) the host of heaven; probably the Jewish people or Church of God; [234] and it cast down some of the host of the stars (individuals among them) to the ground, and stamped upon them. Yea, he magnified himself even to (or against) the prince of the host (probably the promised Messiah or God Himself); and by Him the daily sacrificethe ordinary stated worship of Jehovah at Jerusalem, accompanied with and expressed by the offering of a lamb every morning and eveningand the place of His sanctuary was cast down. And an host [235] (or a time) was given him against (or over) the daily sacrifice by reason of transgression, and it cast down the truththe Jewish worship and religionto the ground, and it practised and prospered (Dan. 8:9-12). In the interpretation of the vision it is said, He shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper and practise, and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people,the Jews, called to be to God a holy nation (Exo. 19:6; Exo. 19:24). The first Book of Maccabees reveals the exact fulfilment of this part of the prophecy, [236] as well as the fact, also predicted, that these outrages did not take place till the apostasy of a large number of the Jews had ripened them for the judgment: The transgressors had come to the full [237]. The Lord was angry for a while for the sins of them that dwelt in the city; therefore His eye was not upon the place. The result of Antiochus waxing great toward the pleasant land was that forty thousand of the Jews were slain and an equal number sold into captivity.
[234] The host of heaven. Here, as in Jer. 33:22, the whole body of the stars of heaven, interpreted by the angel in Dan. 8:24 to denote the people of the saints, or the covenannt people of God, the stars who were cast to the ground being therefore individuals among the people, and not necessarily the priests or leaders. He (the general) fell suddenly upon the city, and smote it very sore, and destroyed many people of Israel (1Ma. 1:30).
[235] An host was given him against the daily sacrifice (Dan. 8:12). (tsabha), a host. According to Keil, it denotes only military service, or perhaps military forces; and the proper rendering of the passage is, An host shall be given up, together with the daily sacrifice, because of transgression, viz., the apostasy of Israel from God. So, in general, C. B. Michaelis, Hvernick, V. Lengerke, Maurer, and Kliefoth. So also Willet, Bullinger, Junius, and Polanus; the latter, however, reading against the daily sacrifice; and understanding by the transgression especially the treachery of the priests Jason and Menelaus, through which the city and Temple were betrayed (2 Maccabees , 4.) Calvin understands the word (tsabha) in the sense of an appointed time, as in Job. 7:1; and considers the meaning to be, that Antiochus could do nothing unless divinely permitted and previously limited; that God would try the patience of His Church for a certain definite time, but that Antiochus should not be able to abolish the worship of God. (tamidh), daily sacrifice; literally, the continual; comprehends all that is of permanent use in the service or worship of God. So Keil, Hengstenberg, Hvernick, &c.
[236] It cast down the truth to the ground (Dan. 8:12). (emeth), truth, the truth; here objective truth; the Word of God, so far as it is embodied in external worship; the Jewish religion and worship as appointed by God Himself. The first Book of Maccabees (1Ma. 1:43, &c.) informs us how far this was cast down by Antiochus. He entered proudly into the sanctuary, and took away the golden altar, and the candlestick of light, and all the vessels thereof, and the table of the shewbread, and the pouring vessels, and the bowls, and the censers of gold, and the veil, the crowns, and the golden ornaments that were before the Temple; all which he pulled off. He took also the silver and the gold and the precious vessels. Moreover, King Antiochus wrote to his whole kingdom that all should be one people, and every one should receive his laws: so all the heathen agreed according to the commandment of the king. Yea, many also of the Israelites consented to his religion, and sacrificed unto idols and profaned the Sabbath. For the king had sent letters by messengers to Jerusalem and to the cities of Judah that they should follow the strange laws of the king, and forbid burnt-offerings and sacrifices and drink-offerings in the Temple, and that they should profane the Sabbath-days and festival days, and pollute the sanctuary and holy people. The punishment of non-compliance was death, which was rigorously inflicted.
[237] When the transgressors are come to the full (Dan. 8:23). (kehathem), literally, at the making full, or when they have made full, i.e., their transgression, or the measure of their sins, understood from the conception of the subject. The transgressors, (happosheim), are the rebellious among the Jews, who apostatised and cast off the religion of Jehovah for the manners of the Greeks, as in Dan. 8:12; perhaps with special reference to the leaders in the apostasy. The author of the first Book of Maccabees thus relates: When on the death of Seleucus, king of Syria, Antiochus Epiphanes came to the kingdom, Jason, the brother of Onias the high priest, laboured underhand to obtain that dignity, promising the king a large sum of money as a bribe, and at the same time another large sum if he might have licence to set him up a place for exercise, and for the training up of youth in the fashions of the heathen; which, when the king had granted, and he had gotten into his hand the rich, he forthwith brought his own nation to the Greek fashion, and putting down the governments which were according to law, he brought up new customs against the law. For he gladly built a place of exercise under the tower itself, and brought the chief young men under his subjection. Now such was the height of Greek fashions and increase of heathenish manners, through the exceeding profanity of Jason, that ungodly wretch and no high priest, that the priests had no courage to serve any more at the altar; but, despising the Temple, and neglecting the sacrifices, they hastened to be partakers of the unlawful allowance in the place of exercise, not setting by the honour of their fathers, but liking the glory of the Grecians best of all. By reason whereof sore calamities came upon them; for they had them to be their enemies and avengers whose customs they followed so eagerly, and to whom they desired to be like in all things. For it is no light thing to do wickedly against the law of God.
IV. His continuance. He practised and prospered (Dan. 8:12). It is not said how long; but in Dan. 8:13-14, it is related by the prophet, Then I heard one saint (or holy one, namely, an angel) speaking, and another saint said unto that certain saint (marg., the numberer of secrets or the wonderful numberer, probably the Son of God, whose name is Wonderful, Isa. 9:6; Jdg. 13:18), which spake, How long shall be the vision concerning the daily sacrifice and the transgression of desolation (marg., making desolate), to give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot? And He said unto me, Unto two thousand and three hundred days (marg., evening-morning, or evening and morning), and then shall the sanctuary be cleansed. The sanctuary was defiled by Antiochus, and the daily sacrifice made to cease in the year 168 B.C. In that year, two years after his first coming up from Egypt against Jerusalem, he sent his chief collector to put an end to the temple-worship, and thus to lay waste the sanctuary till it was made like a wilderness (1Ma. 1:39). It was not till about four years afterwards that he died. The sanctuary, however, had been cleansed in the preceding year by Mattathias and his sons the Maccabees, after it had been defiled between three and four years. The time mentioned in the texttwo thousand and three hundred daysmight, it has been thought, indicate the period from the first attack of Antiochus on Jerusalem, when he entered proudly the sanctuary and took away the golden altar, &c., till the cleansing of it between five and six years afterwards [238]. Viewed typically and reckoned on the large year-day prophetic scale, a day being counted a year, according to Num. 14:34, Eze. 4:5-6, the cleansing would apparently take place, A.D. 2132.
[238] Unto two thousand and three hundred days (marg., evening morning): then shall the sanctuary be cleansed. Calvin says these days fill up six years and three and a half months, while the Jews suffered under Antiochus about six years. Keil also understands the period here mentioned as two thousand three hundred days, but views it rather as symbolical, the oppression of Antiochus having continued not fully seven years. Wintle thinks the expression evening morning should induce us to understand those days in the first instance literally, rather than of months and years; and would thus refer them to the tyranny of Antiochus, without forgetting the reference to Antichrist, of whom Antiochus was the type. Dr. Rule, however, remarks: The king of fierce countenance (Dan. 8:23) was to arise in the latter part of the kingdom of the successors of Alexander, which kingdom began about three hundred and seven years before Christ. The defilement of the Temple, b.c. 168, took place only one hundred and two years before the extinction of the Syrian kingdom, b.c. 66, and therefore in the latter time of their kingdom, that is to say, the kingdom of the four kings; and must be taken to make the commencement of the two thousand three hundred years, which, on that calculation, will terminate in the year of our Lord 2132. About that year, therefore, if we correctly understand the prophecy, some state of things is likely to arise that shall answer to the cleansing of the sanctuary, the restoration of the daily sacrifice, the ending of the transgression of desolation, and the fulfilment of Daniels vision.
V. His end (Dan. 8:25). He shall be broken without hand. Neither in battle, nor by the hand of the assassin, nor any other human instrumentality, but by the secret operation and mighty power of God, was this oppressor of His people and His cause to meet with his end. Prophecy was fulfilled in his death as truly as in his life. History relates that having gone to Elymais, in Persia, in quest of gold to pay the Roman tribute, he left the place in great heaviness to return to Babylon. There came to him, however, says the author of 1st Maccabees, one who brought him tidings into Persia that his armies, which went against the land of Judea, were put to flight, and that the people had pulled down the abomination which he had set up upon the altar in Jerusalem. When the king heard this he was astonished and sore moved; whereupon he laid him down upon his bed and fell sick for grief, because it had not befallen him as he had looked for; and there he continued many days, his grief always increasing, and he made account that he should die. Then calling his friends together, he is said to have addressed them in the following terms: I now remember the evils that I did at Jerusalem, and that I took all the vessels of gold and silver that were therein, and sent to destroy the inhabitants of Judea without a cause. I perceive, therefore, that for this cause these troubles are come upon me, and behold, I perish through great grief in a strange land (1Ma. 6:4-16). The second Book of Maccabees further relates that, fleeing from Persepolis, where he had attempted to rob the temple, and coming to Ecbatana, he received the tidings of the defeat of his generals, Nicanor and Timotheus, in Judea, and that upon this he resolved to hasten his return to Jerusalem, threatening to make it a common burying place of the Jews; but that as soon as he uttered the words, he was smitten with an incurable and invisible plague, being seized with severe pains in his bowels, aggravated by a sore fall from his chariot while driving violently in haste for revenge; while, along with his extreme pain, the worms rose up out of his body, his flesh fell away, and the noisomeness of the smell that issued from him was such that no one could endure to carry him, and that he himself was unable to bear it.
From the whole chapter we may notice
1. The reality of fulfilled prophecy. The proof of the predictions contained in this chapter being true prophecy and not history, as well as of their actual fulfilment, such as to be sufficient to convince any but those who will not believe either in prophecy or miracle on any evidence whatever. The fulfilment of the prophecy in this section so exact that writers of the Rationalistic school have employed all their ingenuity to disprove the genuineness of the book and to make it to be a forgery of later times. Our comfort to know that as God possesses the knowledge of future events, so He has given to His people a proof of His concern for their welfare by communicating to them through His servants, centuries beforehand, events that shall surely come to pass.
2. The interest taken by angelic beings in the affairs of the Church and the world. This interest exhibited here by two celestial personages, one of whom at least is a created angel. Their interest in the vision and its interpretation an example worthy of our imitation, for whose benefit both were given. If an angel inquired with concern of Him who is the revealer of secrets, How long shall be the vision? well may those do so who have a personal interest in the events foretold.
3. The duty of inquiring into the meaning of the word of prophecy. This taught by the example of the prophet himself. Daniel, not satisfied with receiving the vision, earnestly sought its meaning. If the prophets themselves inquired diligently what, and what manner of time, the Spirit that was in them did signify, when He testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow, how much more ought we to do so for whom they ministered? (1Pe. 1:10-12).
4. Jesus the Author both of the prophecies and their interpretation. Little doubt but that here and in chap. 9. He is the person who is introduced as communicating with Daniel through a created angel. So the New Testament prophecies are called the revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave unto Him, and which He sent and signified by His angel unto His servant John (Rev. 1:1). So in chap. Rev. 22:16 : I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. A sufficient reason surely for studying the prophetic Word, as well as a sweet encouragement to look for divine help in understanding its meaning. The prophetic office of Jesus never to be forgotten.
5. The instrumentality of others employed by the Head of the Church in communicating knowledge. The interpretation of the vision not given to Daniel directly, but through the medium of an angel. Gabriel, make this man to understand the vision. So Philip was sent to expound to the eunuch the prophecy he was reading: How can I understand except some man should guide me? (Act. 8:30-31).
6. The tendency of the heart to backslide from God. Within four centuries after the return of the Jews from Babylon, they are found to have departed so far from God, and to have adopted so much the ways of the heathen, that fresh and still greater calamities were made to overtake them, almost to their entire extinction as a people. Only too much ground for the warning, Take heed lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God.
7. The danger to true religion from the influence of the world around us, and the necessity of guarding against it. The danger to Israel after their return to their own land was that they were surrounded by the heathen and brought into close contact with them. They were mixed with the heathen and learned their ways. The danger from conformity to the world, the rock against which the Church of God needs constantly to be warned. Evil communications corrupt good manners. Hence the exhortation, Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord (2Co. 6:17).
8. Gods patience and long-suffering. Not till the transgressors had come to the full did He employ the scourge of the Syrian oppression for their correction. Sentence against an evil work not speedily executed. The long-suffering of God to be accounted salvation. God not willing that any should perish. His goodness intended to lead to repentance. Only when that fails goodness is exchanged for severity.
9. The mercy of divine chastisement. Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth. Better for Israel to have Antiochus let loose upon them than to continue to learn and practise the ways of the heathen and sink into apostasy. Better smart for sin in time than suffer for it in eternity. The case of Israel and Antiochus is given as an example of the use of persecution to discipline the Church of God and His ministers, and to prepare the way for the Saviour.
10. The wretched depravity of the human heart. In Antiochus Epiphanes, as in millions more, we have an example of the madness that is in mens hearts while they live without God and are strangers to His grace. The tendency of the heart to increase in depravity as its desires are indulged. No height of pride or depth of wickedness to which a man may not arrive when left to himself and the enemy of souls. One prayed to be kept from that most hideous of sights, a human heart. Better the saying of the heathen philosopher, Know thyself.
11. Oppressors and persecutors still in Gods hand. To Antiochus, as to others, He says, Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further, and here shall thy proud waves be stayed. The tyrant and oppressor employed as His scourge as long as He sees necessary, and then arrested in his madness, either in mercy or in judgment. Saul, breathing out slaughter against Gods saints, is awakened and saved; Antiochus perseveres in his cruelty till he is broken without hand.
12. Timely help and deliverance provided for Gods persecuted people. While Antiochus is prepared as a scourge for backsliding Israel, Mattathias and his sons are raised up as means for their deliverance. So with the Jews and Sennacherib. The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold, &c. Herod Agrippa stretches out his hand to vex certain of the Church, and he is smitten with an unseen hand and eaten up of worms. Queen Mary dies while Bernard Gilpin is on his way to a martyrs death. Persecutors seldom allowed to be long livers, and when the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him. Where Satan raises up a Pharaoh, God in His time prepares a Moses.
13. Religious privileges and ordinances not sufficient to keep the Church from backsliding from God, nor to save it from punishment when it does so. The abuse of such privileges among a nations greatest sins, and the cause of its sorest chastisements. The sin which brought Antiochus against the Jews and Mahomet against the Christians. The ark of God no safety to unfaithful Israel from the hand of the Philistines. Take away her battlements, for they are not the Lords. Englands greatest danger from despised mercies and abused privileges. Britains highest privilege the abundance of her Bibles and the freeness of her Gospel. The present a time, however, for all the lovers of their country to cry mightily to God to save her from the sin of a refused Bible and a rejected Saviour.
HOMILETICS
SECT. XXIX.THE MOSLEM ANTICHRIST (Chap. Dan. 8:9-25)
Although the vision of the Syrian or Grecian Little Horn had plainly its fulfilment in Antiochus Epiphanes, yet there have appeared reasons for believing that it looked beyond that monarch to another power, of which it might be regarded as the type [239]. This has seemed especially probable from the time during which the sanctuary was to remain uncleansed and the daily sacrifice to be abolished. The pollution of the Temple by Antiochus, strictly speaking, continued only some three years or three years and a half; which latter term would be not 2300, but 1260 days. The probability is that the term days, or, as it is here peculiarly expressed, evening mornings, as often elsewhere in prophecy, is to be understood of years; as it obviously is in chap. 12., and as the weeks in the next chapter are well known to be weeks not of days but of years. Another reason for regarding this Little Horn as typical of another power afterwards to arise is the fact that the Scripture elsewhere applies the same language to a power that was only to appear in connection with the fourth beast or Roman Empire, and that is usually spoken of as the Antichrist; while the evils predicted as wrought by Antiochus against the Jews were much less than those inflicted both upon Jews and Christians (the people of the new covenant) by another power in many respects resembling him. There appears reason, therefore, to regard the Little Horn of the third beast or Grecian Empire as typical of that other Little Horn of the fourth beast or Roman Empire predicted in chap. 7. It is thus that Antiochus was regarded by the early Christians as a type of Antichrist.
[239] Bishop Newton observes that most of the ancient fathers and modern divines and commentators agree with Jerome in applying the prophecy to Antiochus Epiphanes, while all allow at the same time that Antiochus was a type of Antichrist, and that in this great enemy of the truth the prophecy was to obtain its full accomplishment. The Bishop, who regards the Roman Empire as the antitype, observes: Antiochus did indeed take away the daily sacrifice, but he did not cast down the place of the sanctuaryhe did not destroy the Temple. He took away the sacrifice for a few years, but the Romans for many ages; and the Romans likewise utterly destroyed the Temple, which Antiochus only spoiled and profaned. He adds, that Antiochus did not so mightily destroy the Jews nor prosper in his heathenish designs against them. Antiochus slew forty thousand and sold forty thousand more; the Romans, after the city was taken, slew eleven hundred thousand and sold ninety-seven thousand more. Antiochus meant to root out the whole people, but his success was not equal; the Romans put an end to the government of the Jews and entirely took away their place and nation. Calvin remarks: It would please me better to see any one wishing to adapt this prophecy to the present use of the Church, and to apply to Antichrist, by analogy, what is said of Antiochus. We know that whatever happened to the Church of old belongs also to us, because we have fallen upon the fulness of times. Jerome had said: Most Christians refer this place to Antichrist, and affirm that what was transacted in a type under Antiochus Epiphanes will be fulfilled in truth under Antichrist. Luther says: All former teachers have called and interpreted this Antiochus a figure of the final Antichrist, and they have hit the right mark. Wieseler remarks that Antiochus Epiphanes, in his self-deifying fanatical haughtiness and his enmity against God and divine worship, is very properly the type of Antichrist. Keil says: The circumstance that the description of the Little Horn growing up between the ten horns of the fourth beast, the speaking great and blasphemous things against the Most High, and thinking to change times and laws (chap. Dan. 7:8; Dan. 7:24, &c.), harmonises in certain features with the representation of Antiochus Epiphanes, described by the Little Horn (chap, 8.), which would destroy the people of the Holy One, rise up against the Prince of princes, and be broken without hand of man, does not at all warrant the identification of these enemies of God and His people rising out of different world-kingdoms, but corresponds perfectly with this idea that Antiochus in his war against the people of God was a type of Antichrist, the great enemy arising out of the last world-kingdom.
It has, however, been believed by some, on apparently satisfactory grounds, that besides the Antichrist of the fourth beast or Roman Empire, Antiochus might typify another power that was to prove as hurtful to the Christian Church as that tyrant was to the Jewish one, and which was to arise within the bounds of the same third empire to which Antiochus himself belonged. That power was the Mohammedan or Turkish, which, with Mahomet for its head and representative, might be called the Antichrist of the East, as the Papacy, with the Roman Pontiff as its head, was of the West; and which, like the latter, appears to occupy a considerable place in the Apocalypse of the New Testament. See Rev. 9:1-19; Rev. 16:12. The pollution of the sanctuary and the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place, which were to characterise the future Antichrist, as it had done Antiochus, has marked the conduct no less of the Moslems than of the Romans. The latter polluted the Temple by planting an idolatrous standard, the Roman eagle, within its walls after the siege [240], while a new city, called lia Capitolina, was erected on the ruins of Jerusalem, which no Jew was allowed to approach. The doings of the Moslems have been no less marked in respect to the Temple, the Holy City, and the Jewish people, while they have been especially directed against the people of the new covenant, the Christian Church in its Eastern branch, with its sanctuaries and worship [241]; and it is not a little remarkable that, as DAubign observes. At the beginning of the seventh century, while the sturdy shoulders of the children of the idolatrous North were placing on the supreme throne of Christendom a pastor on the banks of the Tiber, these events were accomplishing in the West precisely at the period when the power of Mahomet arose in the East. It may be interesting to trace the typical analogy in the various particulars enumerated in the preceding chapter.
[240] Josephus relates that after the city was taken the Romans brought their ensigns into the Temple and placed them over against the eastern gate, and sacrificed to them there. Bishop Newton remarks that the Roman army itself is fitly called the abomination, and the abomination of desolation, as it was to desolate and lay waste Jerusalem; and is said to stand in the holy place when compassing the city; Jerusalem itself and a space around it being accounted holy.
[241] Dr. Cox remarks that in this chapter, according to Faber, whose interpretation appears to be, on good grounds, now universally [rather, extensively] adopted, the prophet records the history of the Mohammedan imposture. He adds that the first efforts of the impostor were directed against the Jews, who refused to receive Mohammeds effusions as the revelations of Heaven, and in consequence suffered the loss of their possessions and lives. So that under the modern Antichrist the Jews suffered as well as the Christians. Gibbon says: Mohammed, with the sword in one hand and the Koran in the other, erected his throne on the ruins of Christianity and of Rome. The genius of the Arabian prophet, the manners of his nation, and the spirit of his religion, involved the causes of the decline and fall of the Eastern empire; and our eyes are curiously intent on one of the most memorable revolutions which have impressed a new and lasting character on the nations of the globe. E. Irving observes that the third of the four chief streams of prophecy presented in the Book of Daniel (viz., that in this 8th chapter), connected itself with the former, at the struggle of the third kingdom with the second, in order that it may trace, within the territory of the third, the rise of another blasphemous power [the Mohammedan], which was also to prevail against the saints of God till the time of the end. Dr. Keith says: The king of fierce countenance is Mohammed, who offered only submission or the sword, and understanding dark sentences (wherewith the Koran pre eminently abounds); who stood up and became mighty, not by his own power, Mohammed possessing no hereditary dominion and rising from nothing. The holy ones are the Christians, whose churches, the host and the stars, he cast to the ground; prospering by policy and craft through a faith accommodated to the passions of men; magnifying himself in his heart, saying, There is no God but one, and Mohammed is His prophet;magnifying himself against the Prince of the host by calling himself a greater prophet than Christ; and destroying the land he subjugated more by peace than others have done by war.
I. The rise of their power. The Saracen power, like Mahomet himself, arose in Arabia, while that of the Turks had its origin in Parthia, near the Oxus, both being within the territory of the he-goat or Grecian Empire, and indeed that part of it from which the Little Horn was to spring, and of which Antiochus was the ruler. Like the founder of the religion which bears his name, the Turkish Empire was little in its beginning, commencing with Togrul Beg, a Turcoman shepherd, the petty chief of a petty clan. Togrul, by marrying the Caliphs daughter, from being, as Dr. Cumming remarks, a petty and contemptible chief, became the loyal and all but irresistible propagandist of Mahometan fanaticism.
II. Its character. Pride obviously belonged to one who claimed to be the supreme prophet of God, whose teachings and revelations were to supersede those both of Moses and of Christ, and to a people that believe themselves to be alone the faithful and the favourites of the Almighty, and despise all others as dogs and infidels. Fierceness is the well-known characteristic both of Saracens and Turks, a people, according to one of their own chiefs, whose delight is in war rather than in peace, and who, in the language of Gibbon speaking of the Turkish nations, still breathe the fierceness of the desert. The singular and somewhat obscure feature of understanding dark sentences may not unnaturally be applied to one who pretended to receive the Koran, with all its mysterious and dark sentences, from the mouth of the Angel Gabriel, a book which has been the study of many of his followers in relation to the most abstruse theological subjects, while many others have entered as profoundly into the various branches of mathematical and scientific knowledge,Mahomets successor, Ali, uniting, as Gibbon remarks, the qualifications of a poet, a soldier, and a saint.
By policy and craft Mahomet is known to have made the progress he did, acting as a worldly ruler while pretending to be the prophet of God and the organ of divine communications to mankind. In the exercise of political government, says the historian just quoted, Mahomet was compelled to abate the stern rigour of fanaticism, to comply with the prejudices and passions of his followers, and to employ even the vices of mankind as the instruments of their salvation. The use of fraud and perfidy, of cruelty and injustice, was often subservient to the propagation of the faith. He is believed to have worn the mask of sanctity and mortification only the better to extend his imposture in the world; while his craft appears in pretending new and contradictory communications from Heaven to meet emergencies and requirements as they arose.
III. Its doings. Like Antiochus Epiphanes, the Saracens and Turks waxed exceeding great toward the south, and toward the east, and toward the pleasant land. They extended their conquests to Egypt, Persia, &c., and to Palestine, the last being in their possession to the present day. The Caliph Omar, in the seventh century, obtained possession of Jerusalem, and immediately caused a magnificent mosque to be erected on the site of the ancient Temple. On his entering the city, the Christian patriarch Sophronius, says Gibbon, bowed before his new master, and muttered, in the words of Daniel, the abomination of desolation is in the holy place. In place of the worship of the Triune Jehovah through the one Mediator Jesus Christ and His atoning sacrifice, was substituted the worship of a Being of whom Mahomet taught that it was unbecoming to say that He could have a son, and who was to be approached through no Mediator unless it might be himself, and through no offering except a mans own meritorious actions. The daily sacrifice was taken away in its true sense, as it had been by Antiochus in its typical one. The religion of Jesus, with its one sacrifice for sin, was banished from the precincts of the Temple area, within which even now a Christian is scarcely permitted to enter. Nor indeed did this take place till, as in the case of Antiochus and the Jews, the transgressors had come to the full; Moslems and Turks being simply the scourge of a degenerate Christianity, which had changed the Gospel of the blessed God into what was in many respects a lie, and His worship into a mass of foolish and worthless superstitions [242]. By them the mystical holy city, the Church of Christ, as well as the literal one, was to be trodden under foot. Everywhere Christian churches were either demolished or converted into mosques [243], and were permitted to remain as such only on the payment of a tribute, the memorials of this profane desolation meeting you everywhere in the East at the present day, as well as in Constantinople itself, where the most splendid mosques, as that of St. Sophia, were originally employed for Christian worship before the Crescent supplanted the Cross. The well-known option to the Christian was between renouncing Christianity, tribute, and death [244]. How Mahomet magnified himself against the Prince of princes, and cast down the truth to the ground, was made only too obvious by the well-known watchword, There is no God but one, and Mahomet is His prophet; and by the law, rescinded only a few years ago under British influence, that made it death for a Moslem to become a Christian.
[242] The Christians of the seventh century, says Gibbon, had insensibly relapsed into a semblance of Paganism; their public and private vow were addressed to the relics and images that disgraced the temples of the East; the throne of the Almighty was darkened by a cloud of martyrs and saints and angels, the objects of popular veneration; and the Collyridian heretics, who flourished in the fruitful soil of Arabia, invested the Virgin Mary with the name and honours of a goddess.
[243] When Christian churches, says Scott the commentator, were converted into mosques, the daily sacrifice might be said to be taken away.
[244] Ye Christian dogs! said Kaled to the Christians of Damascus, ye know your optionthe Koran, the tribute, or the sword.Gibbon (Decline and Fall, &c., chap. 51.)
IV. Its end. The Little Horn was to be broken without hand. We have seen the fulfilment of this part of the prophecy in relation to the person of Antiochus. In his Moslem antitype, however, we look for it rather in the power than the person. In the Book of Revelation the Turkish power, which succeeded the Saracenic and continued the reign of Islam, is presented under the symbol of the river Euphrates, the quarter from whence it sprung (Rev. 9:14-15). That river, however, was to be dried up, that the way of the kings of the East might be prepared (Rev. 16:12). The Turkish power, after serving the purpose for which in the providence of God it was prepared for an appointed time, was to be gradually dissolved till it wholly disappeared. This decay or drying up was to take place, according to apocalyptic symbol, as the effect of the effusion of the sixth vial, while that of the seventh was to bring the end. The fact that, in the days in which we live, this decay of the Turkish Empire is rapidly going on, is well known to every intelligent reader of the newspapers. One of the subjects recently engaging the attention of Europe was the demand of Greece for the rectification of its extended frontier, involving the surrender of Turkish territory. More than half a century ago E. Irving wrote: Though the destruction of the Mahometan power is yet future, it is even now beginning to be broken without hand by its own disorganisation and dismembermentwasting away of inward consumption, according to the language of the sixth vial [245]. From the year 1820, the Turkish power has been the sick man, gradually losing his strength and coming to his end. Moslems themselves believe that, according to ancient prophecy, the days of Islam are numbered. Daniels period for the antitypical cleansing of the sanctuary cannot, therefore, be far distant [246]. Nor is it unlikely that, as the Papal and Moslem Antichrists began their disastrous course almost together, so together, or within a short period of each other, they will perish.
[245] Fifty years ago it was written by Lamartine, Turkey is dying rapidly for want of Turks. Another, writing subsequently from Constantinople, says, Turkey is in the agony of dissolution. A recent death-pang was in the cession of Dulcigno to Montenegro at the bidding of the powers of Europe; immediately followed by another, the cession of more of its territory to Greece.
[246] Dating from the time of Alexanders invasion of Asia in 334 b.c., according to Bishop Newton and others, the 2300 years expire in 1966 a.d. or, if the Septuagint reading be adopted, a century later. Dr. Cumming prefers to date this period from the time when the Persian Empire reached its meridian glory in the year 480 b.c., just before the defeat of Xerxes on his invasion of Greece; which brings the period to its close in 1820 a.d., when it is well known the decay of the Ottoman Empire began by the revolt of Ali Pasha and the insurrection of the Greeks. Dr. Cox observes: It is some clue to the commencement of the period to remark that Daniel does not refer to the origin of the Persian monarchy, but to some period afterwards when it is to become a settled government; because the Medo-Persian ram does not rise from the sea, but stands, already grown, upon the margin of the river. Cyrus and Darius were conquerors, but it was not till the seventh year of Artaxerxes that the empire had attained its strength. The Medo-Persian ram rose in the year b.c. 536, and continued to stand till b.c. 330; the date of the vision therefore is between these years. To date the period from the middle of that interval would bring its termination to the year a.d. 1897, or, if we read according to the Septuagint, a century later.
The effect of the vision upon Daniel himself, noted in the end of the chapter. I, Daniel, fainted, and was sick certain days (Dan. 8:27). The mere circumstances of the vision might have thus operated on Daniels physical system. Communication with angelic beings in the present state probably too much for the human frame to endure without considerable derangement. It is likely, however, that the nature of the communication made had the principal share in producing this effect. The prospect of so much misery in store for his people after their restoration to their own land, and that, too, as the consequence of their own multiplied and matured transgressions, especially their abandonment of Jehovahs worship, was too much for the sensitive and beloved prophet. Daniel felt as a patriot, a prophet, and a man of God. From this, the concluding part of the chapter, we may note
1. It is the part of sin to blunt, but of grace to intensify, natural feelings. The more that our nature is refined and purified, the more shall we be affected by the sins and sorrows of others, especially those of our own kindred and country. The more we are made to resemble the Sinless One, the more readily shall we with Him mingle our tears with the bereaved and weep over a city that rejects its God and Saviour. The same grace drew from the tender-hearted prophet the exclamation, Oh, that my head were waters and mine eyes fountains of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughters of my people; and caused the manly, courageous Apostle to write, I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh (Jer. 9:1; Rom. 9:23).
2. The feelings and affections moved by realised truth according to its nature. The effect of truth, cordially received and realised, as in the case of the prophet, is to produce either joy or sorrow, hope or fear, love or aversion. The depth and power of the emotion according to the character of the truth and the intensity with which it is realised. The proper effect of Gospel truth to produce not only love to the revealed Saviour, but to fill the soul with joy (1Pe. 1:8). Believed and realised prediction of divine visitation for sin naturally productive of deep concern. The mark of the godly to tremble at Gods word (Isa. 66:2). When I heard, my belly trembled; my lips quivered at the voice: rottenness entered into my bones, and I trembled in myself, that I might rest in the day of trouble (Hab. 3:16). It is the nature of sin to harden the heart against divine threatenings (Heb. 3:7; Heb. 4:7). While Paul reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled. His ruin was that he resisted his convictions, silenced his fears, and hardened his heart by a return to his sins.
3. Religious concern no hindrance to daily duty. Daniels sickness disabled him for duty while it lasted, which was only for certain days. So soon as it was over he rose up and did the kings business (Dan. 8:27). Daniels well-balanced mind knew how to be diligent in business while fervent in spirit. One form, fruit, and evidence of serving God faithfully is the faithful discharge of relative duties. Daniel was faithful and diligent in serving the king because he was faithful and diligent in serving God. His diligence and fidelity as well as his wisdom the source and secret of his influence at the Babylonian and Persian courts. Seest thou a man diligent in his business? He shall stand before kings, and shall not stand before mean men.
4. Gods dealings often dark and mysterious. Daniel was astonished at the vision (Dan. 8:27). Events in providence often very different from our anticipation. Daniel expected a long period of peace and prosperity to his people on their settlement in their own land, according to the glowing descriptions of Isaiah and other prophets; while Israel, taught by bitter experience, would henceforth walk in the ways of the Lord. Both of these expectations were contradicted by the vision. Messiah was not yet to appear. The people were to suffer more than ever, and their suffering was to be the chastisement of their apostasy and sin. His way is in the sea, and His path on the great waters. Patience is to have her perfect work. Though the vision tarry, wait for it. One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. God is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness. If He delay to fulfil His promise, it is because delay is better than despatch. My ways are not your ways, neither are my thoughts your thoughts, saith the Lord.
5. Knowledge of prophetic truth not in all cases vouchsafed. None understood the vision (Dan. 8:27). Daniel was to shut up the vision (Dan. 8:27). It was true, and therefore to be carefully preserved; but its fulfilment was distant, for many days. As the time of fulfilment drew nigh it would be pondered and better understood. At the end it shall speak, and not lie (Hab. 2:3). The time would come when many should run to and fro, or carefully investigate its meaning, and the knowledge of it should be increased (chap. Dan. 12:4). That time much nearer now in these last days. Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand (Rev. 1:3).
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
CHAPTER EIGHT
II. LOCKING HORNSDan. 8:1-27
a. THE GOAT AND THE RAM
TEXT: Dan. 8:1-8
1
In the third year of the reign of king Belshazzar a vision appeared unto me, even unto me, Daniel, after that which appeared unto me at the first.
2
And I saw in the vision; now it was so, that when I saw, I was in Shushan the palace, which is in the province of Elam; and I saw in the vision, and I was by the river Ulai.
3
Then I lifted up mine eyes, and saw, and, behold, there stood before the river a ram which had two horns: and the two horns were high; but one was higher than the other, and the higher came up last.
4
I saw the ram pushing westward, and northward, and southward; and no beasts could stand before him, neither was there any that could deliver out of his hand; but he did according to his will, and magnified himself.
5
And as I was considering, behold, a he-goat came from the west over the face of the whole earth, and touched not the ground: and the goat had a notable horn between his eyes.
6
And he came to the ram that had the two horns, which I saw standing before the river, and ran upon him in the fury of his power.
7
And I saw him come close unto the ram, and he was moved with anger against him, and smote the ram, and brake his two horns; and there was no power in the ram to stand before him; but he cast him down to the ground, and trampled upon him; and there was none that could deliver the ram out of his hand.
8
And the he-goat magnified himself exceedingly; and when he was strong, the great horn was broken; and instead of it there came up four notable horns toward the four winds of heaven.
QUERIES
a.
Where is Shushan in the province of Elam?
b.
What is the significance of the last horn of the ram coming up higher than its first horn?
c.
Why was the he-goat moved with anger against the ram?
PARAPHRASE
In the third year of the reign of king Belshazzar, I, Daniel, had a second vision from the Lord, somewhat like the first. In this vision I found myself at Susa, the capital of the province of Elam, standing beside the Ulai River. As I was looking around, I saw a ram with two horns standing on the river bank; these two horns were large, but one was larger than the other and this larger of the two grew up last! The ram butted everything out of its way as it butted toward the west, the north and the south, and there was no one who could stand against it or render aid to its victims. This ram did as he pleased and became very great. And as I contemplated what all this might mean, lo, a he-goat came from the west, traversing his course of progress over all the earth so swiftly that he hardly even touched the ground. This he-goat had one very great horn between his eyes. He butted furiously at the two-horned ram, and the farther he came, the angrier he became toward the ram. He charged into the ram and broke off both his horns and when the ram was helpless the he-goat knocked it down and stamped it with his feet and none could deliver the ram from being destroyed by the he-goat. The he-goat then became proud and powerful, but suddenly, at the apex of his greatness, his horn was broken. In its place grew four strong horns pointing toward the four corners of the world.
COMMENT
Dan. 8:1-2 . . . A VISION APPEARED TO ME . . . IN SHUSHAN . . . BY THE RIVER ULAI . . . Elam was a country situated on the east side of the Tigris river opposite Babylonia in a mountainous region. Its population was made up of a variety of tribes. Their language, different from the Sumerian, Semitic, and Indo-European tongues, was written in cuneiform script, It has not yet been deciphered to any great extent. Elam was one of the earliest civilizations. In Sumerian inscriptions it was called Numma (high mountain people), which term became Elamtu in Akkadian texts; in classical literature it was known as Susiana, the Greek name for Susa, the capital city of Elam. The river Ulai runs through the province of Elam, flowing on through the city of Susa, into the Tigris-Euphrates.
Why did Daniel deem it necessary to mention these places? Because Shushan was later to become the summer capital of the Persian Empire. When the vision appeared to Daniel, nothing concerning the future importance of this site was known. But since the fortunes of Persia were involved, the future center of Persian life and activity was the best background. The yet unknown Sushan no doubt needed to be located for many of Daniels readerswhich certainly bears witness to the predictive nature of the Scriptures.
Archaeological effort in the last part of the 1880s uncovered in Shushan the great palace of King Xerxes (486465 B.C.) in which Queen Esther lived. Many Jews lived here in the captivities and became prominent in the affairs of the city as the books of Esther and Nehemiah show.
Dan. 8:3-4 . . . BEHOLD, THERE STOOD BEFORE THE RIVER A RAM WHICH HAD TWO HORNS . . . ONE WAS HIGHER THAN THE OTHER . . . HE DID ACCORDING TO HIS WILL . . . MAGNIFIED HIMSELF . . . The ram is Medo-Persit (cf. Dan. 8:20). The two horns are the two component parts of the empire, Media and Persia. The taller one came up last, which coincides with the history of this empire when Persia eventually became supreme and assimilated the Medes. How does the ram typify Persia? The ram is an emblem of princely power (cf. Eze. 34:17; Eze. 30:18; and Dan. 8:20). The contrast between a ram and a he-goat is remarkably close to the relationship between Persia and Greece. The ram likes to butt things and yet there is something of a staid and sober character to it and not quite as flamboyant as the he-goat.
The history of Persias rapid conquest of the world is symbolized by the butting of the ram toward the west, north and south. It did not butt toward the east because she herself was the eastern most part of her empire. The three points of the compass agree with the three ribs in the mouth of the bear (chapter 7). The statement that no beasts could stand before him refers to the imagery of chapter 7 also and the command there, Arise and devour much flesh. There was little resistance to the Persian conquest of the world until Philip of Macedon (Alexander the Greats father) of whom we have spoken earlier. The phrase he did as he pleased was in a special sense true of the Persian Empire. Whatever rulers and people wanted in the course of their conquests, that they did, no matter how irregular or strange it might seem to others.
That the Persian conquerors magnified themselves may be exemplified by this historical sketch from Archaeology and Our O.T. Contemporaries, by James Kelso, pub. by Zondervan; pgs. 167172,
In Isaiah God speaks of Cyrus as His shepherd and His anointed i.e., Messiah. These two terms designate Cyrus as a king chosen by God to be His agent in world history. And Cyrus was, indeed, one of historys most significant monarchs. Look at this abridged summary of the Persian empire which Cyrus created. For the first time in history the Persians give us a world empire dominated by Aryans. The previous Hamitic and Semitic world empires had made a tragedy of international government. But Persia brought in a veritable millennium for subject peoples. These Persians were virtually an unknown people until Cyrus in one generation made them masters of the world. Cyrus was at least as great a military genius as Alexander.
To create his empire Cyrus had to capture about twenty strong enemies including Lydia where Croesus, the richest man in the world, ruled Asia Minor; and Babylonia, the greatest of the ancient powers before Cyrus. He ruled from the Aegean Sea on the west to the Jaxartes River and the Himalayas on the east. All of these he consolidated into an empire that lasted two centuries. This is the final test of military power and it is here where Alexander was a total failure as his empire fell to pieces immediately upon his death.
Under Darius the Persian empire increased somewhat and was then twice the size of any previous world empire. Darius governed from the Balkans and Egypt on the west well into India on the east. The Persian empire ran for two centuries and gave the world the longest peace in history until the Pax Romana. About the middle of the Persian empire, Nehemiah, the last great political figure in the Old Testament, appeared. The Persian and the Roman empires were far more similar than formerly realized.
The Persian peace brought in one of the greatest periods of commercial expansion. They introduced an international language (Aramaic), rapid communications and good roads. They also put coinage on an international basis. In the sphere of politics Persia was the first world government to attempt to bring different races and nationalities under a central government which assured to all the rights and privileges of government as well as its burdens. They allowed the various subject races and existing civilizations to go on side by side with their own. They even permitted the Jews to coin their own money! Furthermore Persia interfered as little as possible in local government matters. Alexander himself found the Persian system of government so excellent that he took over almost bodily the Persian policy of world empire and simply grafted on to it his own Hellenistic policies.
The Persians respect for truth and honor and their humane and chivalrous character was the secret of their nations success. Their kings might lack these qualities, but the subject states of the empire seldom suffered seriously as most of the Persian subordinates were true to Persian ideals. The Persians diplomatic and commercial language was Aramaic, not Persian! Thus Aramaic became one of the worlds influential languages. Its inscriptions are found as far east as India. In Roman times the Levant had a renaissance of this language, which was then called Syriac, and it replaced Greek. The Persians were the founders of religious freedom on a world basis. Note that the Jews speak well only of the Persian empire. Rome returned to many of the Persian practices.
Many of the features of good government which these Persians introduced are those which we have often thought of as Americas unique contribution to world history. We should be doing far more than we are in the light of over two thousand years of international history and especially in 1900 years of the teachings of Jesus Christ. The Persians deserve far more credit in world history than they have received. Unfortunately, too often the Greeks have been their historians, and your bitter enemy seldom speaks well of you.
The Ram and the He-Goat
The Death of Alexander the Great
Now let us return to the days of Cyrus. In antiquity the nations who were successful in war brought home to their capital city the chief idols of the conquered peoples as the major prize of victory. Thus mighty Babylon held the worlds largest collection of gods in antiquity. When Cyrus conquered that empire he completely reversed this policy. He told all the conquered peoples to come to Babylon and take home their national gods. With Israel there was no idol, but the temple vessels taken away by Nebuchadnezzar were returned to Jerusalem in the care of Shesh-bazzar, fourth son of Jehoiachin. Under Darius, the Persian government even helped bear the expense of erecting Israels new temple.
Dan. 8:5-8 . . . BEHOLD, A HE-GOAT . . . SMOTE THE RAM . . . THE GREAT HORN WAS BROKEN . . . THERE CAME UP FOUR NOTABLE HORNS . . . The buck-goat is a fitting symbol for the empire of Greece (cf. Dan. 8:21) for it represents ruggedness and power (cf. Zec. 10:3). It represents sure-footedness and quickness. In 1Ma. 1:3 Alexanders conquests are thus described: He went through to the ends of the earth and took spoils of a multitude of nations; and the earth was quite before him, His conquests were so rapid the he-goat is represented as not touching the ground, or literally, skimming over the earth. He came from ma-arabh (where the sun setsthe west). This he-goat had a horn of conspicuousness (a prominent horn) between its eyes. This prominent horn represents Alexander the Great.
The river is significant for it symbolizes the historic clash of the Greeks and the Persians at the Granicus river where they met in their first Asiatic war. The great anger points to the cry for vengeance from the Greek city states after years of assaults across the Aegean sea by the Persian hordes in 490480 B.C. and battle at Marathon, Salamis, Plataea and Athens. When Darius landed near the plain of Marathon in 490 B.C. the city of Athens dispatched a runner, Pheidippides, to Sparta to summon long-pledged aid. He covered 140 miles in two days, but he raced in vain. For the famed fighters of Sparta, celebrating a festival of Apollo, could not go to war during that holy time. Athens hastily mobilized militia, and her general Miltiades gave the order: Take food and march. Miltiades, by shrewdly outwitting and outflanking his foe (the Persian army) and by courageously charging into the ranks of the Persians (Merodotus wrote, They were the first Greeks . . . who charged their enemies at a run . . .) defeated Darius at Marathon. Most Greeks hailed Marathon as glorious proof of their invincibility. But Themistocles, an Athenian statesman, warned that the Persians would return. Like Churchill in Britain between world wars, Themistocles went unheeded by the masses and was mocked by political opponents. The rich fought his plan for a tax-financed navy, preferring the self-supported citizen army. Across the Aegean, meanwhile, the Persian empire was conscripting men, ships, and arms for a land-and-sea invasion of Greece. In 481, Xerxes, successor to his fathers throne, massed three forces on the Asian shore of the Hellespont. Athens Sparta, Corinth, and Aegina responded by forming a defensive league that would eventually include 31 city-states. But most Greeks, awed by Persian might, favored neutrality or even alliance with the invaders.
Xerxes bridged the channel with boats. His Egyptian subjects, renowned as the worlds best ropemakers, produced the great bridge cables (a sample of their craft has been excavated in an Egyptian quarry: rope 18 inches in diameter attached to a 70-ton block of stone). Sod covered the mile-long plank roadway and high screens lined it so that animals crossing on it would not shy at the seething current. Across the Hellespont in 480 tramped an army that ancients numbered in the millions. Some 1000 ships paralleled the armys march, landing men and supplies as the invaders headed westward through Thrace, Macedonia, and Thessaly. The fleet traversed a canal Xerxes had ordered cut through the Mount Athos peninsula. He must have paid for the work in gold darics (named for Darius). A 300-coin cache has been found there. The Persians lived off the land. But unlike the Greeks, they were great meat eaters, so their fleet maintained food dumps holding beasts for slaughter and stores of salt meat of every kind. The depots also had piles of papyri for paper-worka military feature alien to Greeks.
This massive army consisted of Persian warriors in leather jerkins and fish-scale armor, high-booted Phrygians; Mysians bearing sharpened stakes, wooden-helmeted men of the Caucasus, Scythians in pointed caps, Iranians behind tall wicker shields, an Arabian camel corps, ass-drawn chariots from Indiaand Ethopians in lionskins who brandished stone-headed clubs and spears tipped with gazelle horn. The exotic horde marched on toward Athens, drinking rivers dry, ravaging the land. But this slave army, said Herodotus, marched under the lash. And ahead lay a pass called Thermopylae, defended by a band of freemen.
Xerxes, enthroned near the pass to watch his men pour through, laughed at a scouts report of vain Greek warriors bathing and preening on the eve of battle. But a Greek, serving Xerxes, heard the report and understood: the troops were Spartans, ritualistically preparing to die. O king! he exclaimed, now you are face to face with the most valiant men in Hellas. Aeschylus, veteran of the battle in the Salamis Strait, re-created it in his play The Persians. He told how the Greeks bronze-sheathed rams smashed into the Persians till hulls rolled over, and the sea itself was hidden, strewn with their wreckage, dyed with blood of men. The dead lay thick on all the reefs and beaches, and flight broke out . . .
Bearing news of the Salamis disaster, messengers sped across the Aegean, rode the Royal Road from Sardis to Susa, and galloped along the highways that linked the satrapies of the Persian empire. Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds, wrote Herodotus, which centuries later became the official motto of the U.S. Post Office. The following summer the Persian messengers had more bad news to spread: An army of some 100,000 Greeks had wiped out the last of the invaders in a battle at Plataea in the hills of Thebes.
And the rest belongs to the history of Alexander the Great, the he-goat whose armies went about their task of conquest as though it were being done to avenge a great wrong: His anger grew to the point where it was nothing less than rageAlexander was bent upon obliterating every vestige of Persian control in the earth.
Alexander and his men spent the winter of 331 B.C. luxuriating in the splendor of Persepolis. One evening, encouraged by his drunken colleagues, Alexander burned the palaces of Xerxes in revenge against that king, who had put Athens to the torch 150 years before. Avenge Greece, cried Alexander, hurling the first firebrand. As soon as sleep had restored his senses, wrote Curtius, Alexander regretted what he had done.
Half the peoples were already subjugated. But to win all Persia, Alexander would have to conquer the rest. His greatest efforts were still to come. In the spring of 330 B.C. Alexander marched north to Ecbatana, Persias summer capital, now Hamadan. His object: the capture of Darius himself. But the Persian fled through the Caspian Gates, a pass over the Elburz Mountains. The Macedonian pursued him, averaging an extraordinary 36 miles a day. When he caught the straggling baggage train, he found Darius dead, murdered by his own disillusioned generals. King of Persia at last, Alexander marched to Zadracarta, modern Gorgan, to assume not only the title but the pomp of an oriental monarch.
At the Beas River, just inside present India, Alexander faced a real mutiny for the first time. His homesick men, unnerved by the fierce fight against Porus, concerned by reports of even greater armies ahead, refused to go on. Alexander summoned his officers and tried to rally them. Silence greeted him. Then Coenus, a faithful general, rose, removed his helmet, and addressed Alexander: O king, I speak not for those officers present, but for the men . . . Those that survive yearn to return to their families, to enjoy while they yet live the riches you have won for them . . . A noble thing, O king, is to know when to stop. Angered and disappointed by the speech, Alexander sulked in his tent for three days. When as last he bowed to the will of his men, they rejoiced. Alexander, they said, has allowed us, but no other, to defeat him. He led his men back to the Jhelum to begin the journey home.
As Arrian wrote, Alexander had no small or mean conceptions, nor would ever have remained contented with any of his possessions . . . but would always have searched far beyond . . . being always the rival, if of no other, yet of himself. As he turned from further conquests in India it is reported that he wept because there were no more worlds to conquer. He died in Persepolis at the age of 32.
Idolized by his men, hailed as divine in lands he won, Alexander passed into the legends of three continents. Central Asia worshipped him as Iskander, founder of cities (one, Bucephala, honored his horse). Chiefs in Turkistan claim descent from him; Afghan mothers frighten naughty children with tales of Iskander. Persians called him son of Darius; Egyptians, son of the last Pharaoh, Nectanebo. Ethiopia made him a saint, and Islam enrolled him as a prophet. Mogul art shows him in a diving bell seeking the seas secrets. Medieval Europe depicted him as a knight of chivalry. Romans, first to call Alexander the Great, held themselves heirs to his empire and ambitions. Augustus wore Alexanders head on a signet ring, emulated his deeds and divinity. Even Buddha owes his image to Alexanders march into the Orient. Inspired by statues Greeks brought to Bandhara, sculptors created Buddha in the image of Apollo, but added to his forehead the Oriental third eye, which emits spiritual light.
He won an empire covering more than one and one half million square miles. He had mapped unknown territory, built cities, opened trade routes, stimulated the exchange of ideas. From the Mediterranean to the Hindu Kush, Greek became the lingua franca of court and commerce.
His vast realm survived for only a few years as the Diadochihis successorsfought each other for power. Dan. 8:8 and its four notable horns coming up in the place of the great horn (Alexander) are parallel to the four heads of the leopard of chapter 7 and represent the four-way division of Alexanders empire between Ptolemy, Antigonus, Cassander and Lysimachus (see our comments on Dan. 7:4-6).
QUIZ
1.
Why did Daniel mention all the geographical locations in Dan. 8:2?
2.
Whom does the ram symbolize and how extensive was his empire?
3.
What is the significance of the ram doing as he pleased?
4.
Who is represented by the he-goat?
5.
Why is the he-goat represented as moving with anger against the ram?
6.
How extensive was the empire of the he-goat?
7.
What is represented by the four notable horns?
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
VIII
(1) The Hebrew language is here resumed. The visions recorded in the remaining portion of the book having no connection with Babylon, the Chaldee dialect is dropped.
Third year.Most probably, not long before the end of his reign. This vision is supplementary to the one recorded in the preceding chapter, giving various details respecting the second and third empires there omitted, showing also how a little horn is to grow out of the third as well as out of the fourth empire.
At the firsti.e., earlier. (Comp. Dan. 9:21.)
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
1. If this were the third year of Belshazzar’s co-regency, this vision chronologically preceded the narration of chap. v while coming two years later than that of chap. 7. This verse does not conclusively prove, as Kamphausen and others think, that the author of Daniel regarded Belshazzar as an “independent king who ruled many years.” We are now historically certain that Belshazzar ruled as independent sovereign only a few weeks or months, if at all; but the cuneiform records, though they never declare him to have exercised joint sovereignty with his father, yet do assign to him state functions agreeable to the position which he would have possessed as co-regent. For Belshazzar see our Introduction, III, 3, (4).
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Commencement of Daniel’s Vision.
‘In the third year of the king Belshazzar, a vision appeared to me, even to me Daniel, after that which appeared to me at the first.’
Daniel draws our attention to the fact that this, his second great vision, occurred two years after the first. But this was not stated to be a dream-vision, but a full vision during which he remained awake and conscious. The mention of Belshazzar is important in that it indicates the continuation at this time of the Babylonian empire. The order of the empires is thus here clearly stated, Babylonian, Medo-Persian, Greek.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
The Vision of the Ram and the He-Goat (550 B.C.) Dan 8:1-27 records the vision of the ram and the he-goat. The traditional view is that this vision represents the conquests of Alexander the Great, king of the Grecian Empire, over the Persians, a conquest extending down to the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, and to the calamities and desolations that he would bring upon the holy land
Dan 8:1 In the third year of the reign of king Belshazzar a vision appeared unto me, even unto me Daniel, after that which appeared unto me at the first.
Dan 8:1
[111] Gleason L. Archer, Jr., Daniel, The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, vol. 7, eds. Frank E. Gaebelien, J. D. Douglas, Dick Polcyn (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Pub. House), 1976-1992, in Zondervan Reference Software, v. 2.8 [CD-ROM] (Grand Rapids, MI: The Zondervan Corp., 1989-2001), notes on Daniel 7:1.
[112] John E. Goldingay, Daniel, in Word Biblical Commentary: 58 Volumes on CD-Rom, vol. 30, eds. Bruce M. Metzger, David A. Hubbard and Glenn W. Barker (Dallas: Word Inc., 2002), in Libronix Digital Library System, v. 2.1c [CD-ROM] (Bellingham, WA: Libronix Corp., 2000-2004), comments on Daniel 9:24.
“a vision appeared unto me, even unto me Daniel, after that which appeared unto me at the first” – Comments In Dan 8:1 the prophet Daniel refers to a former vision, which is generally understood as the one recorded in Dan 7:1-28.
Dan 8:2 And I saw in a vision; and it came to pass, when I saw, that I was at Shushan in the palace, which is in the province of Elam; and I saw in a vision, and I was by the river of Ulai.
Dan 8:2
Dan 8:3 Then I lifted up mine eyes, and saw, and, behold, there stood before the river a ram which had two horns: and the two horns were high; but one was higher than the other, and the higher came up last.
Dan 8:3
Dan 8:4 I saw the ram pushing westward, and northward, and southward; so that no beasts might stand before him, neither was there any that could deliver out of his hand; but he did according to his will, and became great.
Dan 8:4
Dan 8:5 And as I was considering, behold, an he goat came from the west on the face of the whole earth, and touched not the ground: and the goat had a notable horn between his eyes.
Dan 8:5
Dan 8:6 And he came to the ram that had two horns, which I had seen standing before the river, and ran unto him in the fury of his power.
Dan 8:6
Dan 8:7 And I saw him come close unto the ram, and he was moved with choler against him, and smote the ram, and brake his two horns: and there was no power in the ram to stand before him, but he cast him down to the ground, and stamped upon him: and there was none that could deliver the ram out of his hand.
Dan 8:7
Comments – Dan 8:7 describes the defeat of the Persians at the hands of Alexander the Great.
Dan 8:8 Therefore the he goat waxed very great: and when he was strong, the great horn was broken; and for it came up four notable ones toward the four winds of heaven.
Dan 8:8
Dan 8:9 And out of one of them came forth a little horn, which waxed exceeding great, toward the south, and toward the east, and toward the pleasant land.
Dan 8:9
The phrase “pleasant land” is generally understood to be a reference to the land of Israel.
Dan 8:10 And it waxed great, even to the host of heaven; and it cast down some of the host and of the stars to the ground, and stamped upon them.
Dan 8:10
2Ma 9:10 , “Because of his intolerable stench no one was able to carry the man who a little while before had thought that he could touch the stars of heaven.” ( NRSV)
Dan 8:11 Yea, he magnified himself even to the prince of the host, and by him the daily sacrifice was taken away, and the place of his sanctuary was cast down.
Dan 8:11
Dan 8:21 And the rough goat is the king of Grecia: and the great horn that is between his eyes is the first king.
Dan 8:21
Dan 8:22 Now that being broken, whereas four stood up for it, four kingdoms shall stand up out of the nation, but not in his power.
Dan 8:22
Dan 8:23 And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall stand up.
Dan 8:23
Dan 8:23 “a king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall stand up” – Comments – A popular interpretation regarding the fierce king that stood up in Dan 8:23-25 is to say that it is a reference to the Syrian king of the Greek Empire named Antiochus Epiphanes, who was very hostile to the people of God during his reign. He represents a type of Antichrist, which will arise in the last days.
Dan 8:26 “but he shall be broken without hand” Comments – That is, the Prince of princes shall break him without man’s hands contributing to this great victory. This clearly describes the Second Coming of Jesus Christ when He shall slay the enemies of God with the sword of His mouth.
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Glorification: The Coming of Christ (Daniel’s Private Visions) – There are two main divisions to the book of Daniel. Daniel 1-6 is primarily narrative material and emphasizes Daniel’s ministry to the kings of Babylon and Media. In these passages he interprets two dreams and the writing on the wall for two kings. This division as well contains three stories of the captivity and persecution of Daniel and his three friends. However, the visions recorded in Daniel 7-12 were not for the kings. Rather, they are a collection of private visions of apocalyptic in nature that Daniel received from the Lord regarding the Time of the Gentiles and the Last Days. They were not delivered to the kings under whom he served, but were initially private in nature. Their emphasis is not on the nation of Israel; but rather, upon the fulfillment of the Times of the Gentiles. The fact that the first section was written in Aramaic and the second section in Hebrew suggests that there were initially two different intended recipients. The Babylonian Jews would have found comfort in both divisions as they saw the sovereign power of God at work in their midst and as they understood by prophecy that God had not forsaken the nation of Israel. Note that this second section has been arranged in chronological order independently of the first section’s chronological arrangement.
Daniel 7-12 is a collection of private visions given to Daniel concerning the future glorification of Jesus Christ and His children and the Great White Throne Judgment of the nations. The redemptive role of Jesus Christ is clearly predicted as the Son of Man comes upon the clouds and approaches the Ancient of Days (Dan 7:13) and He establishes the everlasting Kingdom of Heaven (Dan 7:14).
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
The Vision Itself
v. 1. In the third year of the reign of King Belshazzar, v. 2. And I saw in a vision, v. 3. Then I lifted up mine eyes and saw, and, behold, there stood before the river, v. 4. I saw the ram pushing westward and northward and southward, v. 5. And as I was considering, v. 6. And he came to the ram that had two horns, v. 7. And I saw him come close unto the ram, and he was moved with choler against him, v. 8. Therefore the he-goat waxed very great, v. 9. And out of one of them came forth a little horn, v. 10. And it waxed great, even to the host of heaven, v. 11. Yea, he magnified himself even to the prince of the host, v. 12. And an host was given him against the daily sacrifice by reason of transgression, v. 13. Then I heard one saint, v. 14. And he said unto me, Unto two thousand and three hundred days,
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
EXPOSITION
Dan 8:1-27
THE RAM AND THE HE–GOAT
This chapter marks the change from Aramaic to Hebrew. The character of the chapter is like that which immediately precedes it. It consists, like it, of the account of a vision, and the interpretation of it. The subject of this vision is the overthrow of the Persian monarchy by Alexander the Great, the division of his empire, and the oppression of Israel by Epiphanes.
Dan 8:1
In the third year of the reign of King Belshazzar a vision appeared unto me, even unto me Daniel, after that which appeared unto me at the first. The text of the Septuagint does not differ greatly from the Hebrew, but avoids the strange anarthrous position of anu, “I.” The Septuagint renders this verse as a title to the chapter, thus: “A vision which I Daniel saw in the third year of the reign of Belshazzar (Beltasar), after that I saw formerly ().” The Septuagint reading seems to have been asher r’oeh anee. Theodotion and the Peshitta are in verbal agreement with the Massoretic text. The third year of the reign of King Belshazzar. We learn now that Belshazzar did not reign independently; but that for at least five years he exercised all the functions of government. If Daniel’s investiture with the position of third man in the kingdom took place on the occasion of Belshazzar’s inauguration of his vice-regal reign, Daniel may have remained in the royal service continuously till the overthrow of the Babylonian monarchy. After that which appeared ,into me at the first. The former vision referred to is clearly the vision of the preceding chapter.
Dan 8:2
And I saw in a vision; and it came to pass, when I saw, that I was at Shushan in the palace, which is in the province of Elam; and I saw in a vision, and I was by the river of Ulai. The LXX. presents several slight differences, “And I saw in the vision of my dream, when I was in the city Susa, which is in the province Elymais, and I seemed in my vision to be at the gate Ailam.” Theodotion renders more briefly, “And I was in Susa the palace ( ), in the province Ailam, and I was on the Ubal.” The Syriac is in close agreement with the Massoretic. even to the transcription of the doubtful word Ubal. The transcription is carried so far that medeenatha, “a city,” is used to translate medeena, “a province.” Jerome renders m deena, cicitas, and uval, portam, and beera, castrum. The word (‘oobal) is nearly a hapax legomenon, absolutely so if we do not admit joobal, in Jer 17:8, to be the same word. There is, as will have been seen above, great differences among the versions. The LXX. and Jerome seem to have read (oolam), “porch” or “gate,” instead of oobal. Ewald would make the word mean “river-basin,” Stromgebeita view supported also by Zckler. In many respects “marsh” might be a more suitable rendering. To the south-west of the present ruins of Susa there is an extensive marsh, which may have been of old date. The preposition liphnee, which occurs in Jer 17:3, is all but meaningless applied to a river, if we use it in its ordinary meaning, “before.” If we take it as meaning “eastward,” the ram would be “westward” from Shushan, ie. between Shushan and the river; but as Daniel was in Shushan, he would naturally state the position of the “ram” in relation to it rather than to the river. The preposition (al) is nearly as meaningless with regard to a river, unless a bridge or a boat is intended. We are inclined to read oolam as “porch.” At the same time, we know that there was the river Ulai (Eulaeus) near Shushan. It is mentioned in one of the inscriptions of Asshurbanipal in connection with Shushan. The palace. Beera really seems to mean “fortress.” It occurs ten times in Esther, and always as the appellation of Shushan. In Nehemiah it is once used with this connotation, but twice in regard to some building in Jerusalem, probably the temple; in Chronicles it is used for the temple. In Ezr 6:2 it is used of Achmetha, equivalent to Ecbatana. From the fact that the LXX. translates , it might be reasoned that the translator had before him, but the translation probably was due to ignorance of the precise meaning of the word. In Esther this word is rendered . In Nehemiah it is once rendered , once it is rendered , and once . The derivation of the word seems to be from the Assyrian birtu. It really means “citadel” or “fortress,” and thus may be compared with the Carthaginian byrsa. Jerome’s translation, castrum, suits this. It is not necessary to maintain that at this time Daniel was in Shushan. All that is implied is that in his dream he was there. Shushan is first referred to in the inscriptions of Asshur-bani-pal as the capital of Elam. In the history of that monarch there is an inscription of his given in which he says, “Shushan, the great city, the seat of their gods, the place of their oracle, I captured.” Then follows a description of the plunder he took from it. We do not know when it recovered from that overthrow. The name is said to be derived from the number of lilies growing in the neighbourhood; but shushan, “a lily,” is a Shemitie word, and the Elamites are usually regarded as an Aryan people. The association of Babylon with Elam and Media must have been intimate, if any credit is to be placed on the Greek accounts of the marriage of Nebuchadnezzar. Hence, even if Elam was not, at the date specified, a province of the Babylonian Empire, perhaps never was, yet the Babylonian. court might well have envoys visiting the court of Elam. We find from the well-known inscription of Nabunahid, that he regarded Cyrus at first as a friend and deliverer from the formidable Astyages, King of Umman-Manda. Daniel may have been sent to Elam, although there is no necessity for maintaining that this was the case. It was not until he had conquered Astyages that Cyrus held possession of Shushan.
Dan 8:3
Then I lifted up mine eyes, and saw, and, behold, there stood before the river a ram which had two horns; and the two horns were high; but one was higher than the other, and the higher came up last. The rendering of the LXX. does not differ essentially from the Massoretic Version, save in the last clause, which is rendered, “and the higher ascended ().” As in the former verse, oobal is translated “gate.” Certainly, as before remarked, “before a river” is an awkward combination; “before“ or “over against a gate” is intelligible. “Eastward,” which liphnee also means, will not suit the geographical circumstances, as Shushan itself stood on the east bank of the river Eulaeus, or Shapur. If, further, oobal means a “marsh,” as Jerome renders it, then “eastward” would not suit. for the existing marsh is to the south-west of Shushan. Theodotion is in closer agreement with the Massoretic text, but does not translate
. The Peshitta renders “westward,” not by yammah, but by the term for “west” that became common in Exilic and post-Exilic Hebrew, maarabthe word that is used in the next verse. Ezekiel uses yammah for “west,” when in vision he places himself in Palestine, otherwise it is not used for “west” by Exilic and post-Exilic writers. If we take the statement of the next verse as fixing what was “the west” to the author of Daniel, where would “seaward” be? If we draw a line from Tress, where Alexander landed, and continue it through Babylon, it reaches the Persian Gulf. “Seaward” would mean consequently “eastward,” or approximately so, to one writing in Babylon. A great number of suggestions have been offered to explain the singular omission of “eastward” from the direction in which the ram pushes with his horns, Havernick, and following him Moses Stuart, assert that “eastward” is not mentioned because the Persians made no conquests to the east until the days of Darius Hystaspis, and then not permanent ones. Against this is the fact that Elam and Media were mainly east of Ansan. Further, the picture here given of the Persian Empire is not restricted to the days of Cyrus and Cambyses, but all through its course. As to the permanence of these Eastern conquests, the territories of Darius Codomannus east of Arbela embraced modern Persia and other territories to the confines of India. Keil assumes that the ram stands on the western bank of the Shapur, so, if he pushed eastward, it would be against his own capital; but if oobal means “a river,” then the only meaning possible for liphnee is “eastward.” He would then be butting towards the river across which the enemy was likely to come, moreover, against his own capital, unless the ram is supposed to be between the river and the cityan unlikely supposition, as Shushan was on the river Eulaeus. He further maintains that the unfolding of the power of Persia was towards these three named directions, and not towards the last, whatever that may mean. Ewald declares the ram does not butt towards the east, because that already belongs to him. As a matter of fact, and, as exhibited by the Book of Esther, welt known to the Jews, the Persian Empire did conquer towards the east. Behrmann says, “The ram does not push towards the east, because he comes from the easta delicacy the Septuagint overlooked.” In point of fact, there is no word in the vision of the ram coming from anywherethis delicacy (feinheit) Professor Behrmann has overlooked. Kranich-fold and Zckler follow this. The view of Bishop Newton, followed by Archdeacon Rose, is that the east had no importance to the Jews; but north and south had just a little. Jephet-ihn-Ali and several modern commentators think the three directions, as the three ribs, imply the limitation of the Persian Empire. It certainly was recognized by the Jews to be little, if at all, less than that of Alexander the Great Hitzig propounds in all gravity an absurd view; he assumes that the ram was standing on the west bank of the river, and faced west, and argues that he did not butt eastward because he could not butt backwards. His preliminary assumption is groundless, as we have seen, and rams can change their position. The true explanation is that a direction has dropped out. While “seaward“ had ceased to mean “west” to the Jews in Babylon, it did not take long residence in Palestine to recover this name for “west.” A copyist living in Palestine, finding yammah, in the first place would translate it “westward;” then after “northward” he would, in the third place, come upon maarab, which also meant “west;” so naturally he dropped the second of what seemed to him synonymous terms. If we are correct in our supposition, we have here demonstrative proof that Daniel was written by one living in Babylon Are beasts might stand before him. All the powers round Persia had to submit to him. And be became great affords proof, if proof were needed, that the vision applies to the whole of the history of Persia. There is little necessity for Moses Stuart’s translation, “became haughty.”
Dan 8:5
And as I was considering, behold, an he-goat came from the west on the face of the whole earth, and touched net the ground: and the goat had a notable horn between his eyes. The Septuagint, when completed from Paulus Tellensis, agrees in the main with the Massoretic, omitting only “whole” before “earth.” The Christian MS. omits the clause, “and touched the ground,” but it is in Paulus Tellensis. As I was considering. “Was” is here used much as an auxiliary verban Aramaic usage. “Considering” really suggests “meditating on.” He-goat. The word here used does not elsewhere occur in the Hebrew Scriptures. It is really an Aramaic word, though vocalized here after the analogy of Hebrew. On the face of the whole earth. The writer had probably in his mind the negative idea expressed in the next verse; hence the word kol. A notable horn; “a horn of sight;” a horn that no one could fail to remark upon. No symbol could express in a more graphic way the rapidity of the conquests of Alexander the Great than this of the goat that flew over the ground. One can parallel with this the four wings of the leopard in Dan 7:1-28. It is singular that Alexander should generally on his coins be figured as horned. Had this vision been due to a knowledge of thiswhich could not have escaped a Jew of the days of the Maccabeesthe writer would certainly have made Alexander not a goat, but a ram. as it is a ram’s horn that is intended to be figured on the portraits of Alexander. As everybody knows, this refers to the fable that he was the son of Jupiter Ammon, the ram-horned. It is difficult to assign a reason why the goat was chosen as the symbol of the Grecian power, save that, as compared with the Persian power, the Greek was the more agile.
Dan 8:6
And he came to the ram that had two horns, which I had seen standing before the river, and ran unto him in the fury of his power. The differences of the Septuagint from the received text are slight here. Oobal is still translated ; it renders, “fury of his rage” rather than “fury of his power.” The Massoretic, as the less obvious collocation, is the better reading. Theodotion and the Peshitta leave oobal untranslated. The latter omits the last clause of the Massoretic. In the Hebrew the ram is called Baal-karnayeem, “lord of two horns.” Alexander’s war against Persia was one of simple aggression.
Dan 8:7
And I saw him come close unto the ram, and he was moved with choler against him, and smote the ram, and brake his two horns: and there was no power in the ram to stand before him, but he cast him down to the ground, and stamped upon him: and there was none that could deliver the ram out of his hand. The two Greek versions, though differing very much in the Greek words chosen as equivalent to the Hebrew, yet both represent a text practically identical with that of the Massoretes. The Peshitta omits the introductory “behold,” but otherwise can scarcely be said to differ essentially from the received text, though there are some peculiarities due to mistaken reading, but unimportant. The word yithmormar, “he was emhittered,” is a word that occurs here and in the eleventh chapter. The root, however, as might be guessed from its meaning, is not uncommon, being found in Genesis Exodus, Samuel, Kings, Isaiah, Ruth, Job, and Zechariah. How Professor Bevan can class this with “words or roots which occur nowhere else in the Old Testament” it is difficult to see. If this part of the verb occurs in later Jewish literature, it is singular that neither Buxtorf nor Levy chronicles the fact. It does not occur in Western Aramaic, but does in Eastern (comp. Peshitta 2Sa 18:33; Act 17:16). It is quite such a word as a man writing among those who spoke Eastern Aramaic might use. Alexander advanced always against Darius; he would not even speak of treating with him. After the passage of the Granicus, he pushed on to Cilicia, overthrew Darius at Issus, b.c. 333; then, after the conquest of Egypt, advanced against him again at Arbela, and once more inflicted on him an overwhelming defeat. When Darius fled from the field, Alexander pursued him to the shores of the Caspian and into Bactria and Sogdiana, till Darius fell a victim to the treachery of Bessus. Certainly relentlessness was the most marked character of Alexander’s pursuit of Darius. The horns of the Persian power were broken, thrown to the earth, and trodden underfoot.
Dan 8:8
Therefore the he-goat waxed very great: and when he was strong, the great horn was broken; and for it came up four notable ones toward the four winds of heaven. The two Greek versions differ from the Massoretic only in thisthat the four horns are not mentioned as notable horns, but simply , “other.” The Peshitta agrees closely with the Massoretic. The Greek versions indicate that the reading they had before them was ‘”haroth instead of hazooth; hazooth has been borrowed from the fifth verse. The empire of Alexander had reached its greatest extent when the young conqueror fell a victim to what seems malarial fever, aggravated by his drinking. His life was broken off before its legitimate conclusion. At his death there was great confusion. Perdiccas assumed the guardianship of the children of the conqueror, and attempted to succeed him in the empire. After his death Antigonus in turn attempted to secure the imperial power, but was defeated and slain at the battle of Ipsus. The empire of Alexander was then divided into four main portionsMacedonia and Greece, under Cassander; Asia Minor, under Lysimachus; Syria and all the East, under Seleucus; and Cyrene, under Ptolemy. In the two first of these there were several revolutions, but finally the Antigonids established themselves in Macedon, and the Attalids in Asia Minor.
Dan 8:9
And out of one of them came forth a little horn, which waxed exceeding great, toward the south, and toward the east. and toward the pleasant land. The Greek versions here differ considerably from the Massoretic text. The LXX. is as follows: “And out of one there sprang a strong horn, and it prevailed and smote toward the south, toward the south-west ( ), and toward the east, and toward the north.” In this case, is clearly a doubletan alternative rendering that has got into the text from the margin. results from reading tzephonah () instead of tzebee (). Theodotion renders, “From one of them went forth a strong horn, and was magnified exceedingly to the south and to the power”reading (tzaba), “host,” for tzebee. It is to be observed that both translate mitztzeeeroth as “strong” () instead of “little.” The reason of this is that they have taken as equivalent to ex, therefore equivalent to a negative. The Peshitta agrees with the Authorized in reading mitztzeeroth as “little,” but leaves out the difficult final word rendered “the pleasant land” in our Authorized Version. Jerome translates mitztze’eeroth by modicum, and tzebee by fortitudinema combination of Theodotion and the Massoretic; he must have had tzaba in his text instead of tzebee,this may have been due to the fact that tzaba occurs in the next verse. The reference is sufficiently obvious to Antiochus. The description is accurate; he sprang from one of the four horns or dynasties that succeeded the great conqueror. He carried his arms to the east, but mainly to the south against Egypt. The great difficulties are in the two Hebrew words mitztzeeeroth and tzebee. As to the first word, the fact that the two Greek versions have read it are conclusive against the suggestion of Gratz and Hitzig, supported by Bevan, that we should omit . (min). Jephet-ibn-Ali takes min as denoting the origin of the horn, “from a little one.” The further suggestion of Gratz, that we should adopt the reading of the LXX; is rightly combatted by Professor Bevan. The readings alike of the LXX. and Theodotion could have sprung from the Massoretic reading, whereas neither of these could so readily be the original reading. It was necessary that Israel should be prominent in this part of the prophecy; it all leads up to the persecution the Jews endured at the hands of Epiphanes. It is necessary, then, to hold that this word, whatever reading we adopt, and whatever immediate meaning we assign to it, must refer to Palestine. Ewald renders it “ornament;” Bevan, “glory.”
Dan 8:10
And it waxed great, even to the host of heaven; and it cast down some of the host and of the stars to the ground, and stamped upon them. The reading of the LXX. is very different after the first clause, “And it was exalted to the stars of heaven, and it was shattered to the earth by thestars, and by them trampled down.” The verb (tappayl) translated “cast down,” has been read as if it had been (tooppal). So too the last verb has evidently been read (vayyir’msoohoo) instead of (vattir’msaym), due to the resemblance which there was between yod and tan in the older script. Theodotion differs hardly less from the Massoretic, “And it was magnified to the power of heaven, and it fell to the earth from the power of heaven and from the stars, and they trode them down.” The verb translated “fell” is evidently read with a vocalization different from both the Massoretic and the LXX The sense of Theodotion is more in accordance with the Septuagint than with the Massoretic. The Peshitta and the Vulgate agree with the Massoretic. The question of which reading is to be preferred can scarcely be settled without regarding the meaning of the terms here used. The crucial point isWhat is the meaning of the “host of heaven”? The general consensus of interpreters is that this refers to Israel. Some maintain that the best of heaven is Israel, and the stars their leaders (Glassins); the stars are the Levites (Grotius). Moses Stuart would hold the host to be the priests, and the stars the teachers. Kliefoth is right in commencing first with the picture, and requiring that it be realized in thought. The horn grows and grows before Daniel’s gaze, until it seems to touch the stars, that is, the host of heaven. As to what is meant by the stars, we must look elsewhere for an explanation. Have we any right to take “the host of heaven” as meaning the people of God? The phrase, “host of heaven,” occurs elsewhere in Scripture nearly a score of times, and it rover means anything else than the stars or the angels. Therefore all interpretations that make this mean either the people of God or the Levites, must be thrown aside. It may, however, mean the people of God mediately. A quite elaborate line of deduction has been brought forwardthe promise to Abraham (Gen 15:5), to Isaac (Gen 26:4), that their seed should be as the stars of heaven, is brought into connection with the use of the word “hosts” in regard to Israel (Num 1:52, etc.)and the title given to God as the God of Israel, “Jehovah of hosts.” This is very ingenious, but it has no support from scriptural usage or from the usage in apocalyptic writings. In the Book of Enoch, which, since it is modelled on this book, furnishes us with the earliest commentary on it, we find the stars are invariably the symbol of the angels. When we pass to the Book of Revelation, we find the same thing. We find when we pass on to the tenth chapter of this book, that all the nations are regarded as under the rule of some special angel We must apply, so far as we can, rules of interpretation which the author himself supplies us with. Using this guide, we see next that, when a nation was defeated and oppressed, its angel or star was regarded as thrown to the earth and trodden underfoot. The treatment Epiphanes meted out to Egypt and Palestine seems specially referred to. If we take the reading of the LXX; then the reference will be to the humiliation Epiphanes received at the hands of the Romans first, and then the Jews, and lastly the Elamites, whose temple he attempted to plunder.
Dan 8:11
Yea, he magnified himself even to the prince of the host, and by him the daily sacrifice was taken away, and the place of his sanctuary was cast down. This is said by Bevan to be the most difficult verse in this whole book. There is a difference here between the Q’ri and the K’thib. The latter reads , the hiphil of , while the former reads , the hophal of the same verb At first sight the difficulty is not lessened by consideration of the versions. The Septuagint as it at present stands is utterly unintelligible, “Until the leader of the host shall save the captivity, and by him everlasting mountains were broken down, and their place and sacrifice taken away, and he placed it in the very ground, and he prospered [reading with Syriac] and was, and the holy place shall be laid waste.” This confusion is due to confluence of readings, and is not difficult to disentangle with the help of the Massoretic text. Up to the last two words the Septuagint is a translation of a text differing from the Massoretic simply by intelligible variations and repetitions not uncommon in the Septuagint. The first clause of the LXX. originally was probably, “Till the prince shall deliver the captivity,” reading (shebee) instead of (tzaba)a scribe, finding in his Hebrew, then added the translation of it to the margin of his Greek copy, from which it got into the text. The original of the LXX. had also (yatztzeel) instead of hig‘deel)a confusion easily made in the elder script, in which and were like. We learn from the Talmud that was liable to be mistaken by scribes for . Moreover, “captivity” would naturally suggest , “to deliver.“ The second clause is, “By him the everlasting mountains were broken down.” Here hayreem has been read with the K’thib, and vocalized as if it were hareem, and tameed, “continual,” translated as equivalent to (olam), “everlasting.” The next clause reveals the other meaning of tameed, “sacrifice,” which probably had been written on the margin, and then dropped into the text. The latter part of the Septuagint verse appears to be confused with the latter part of the following verse according to the Massoretes. Theodotion is even less intelligible than the Septuagint, “Until the leader of the host shall save the captivity, and through him the sacrifice was broken down, and he prospered, and the holy place shall be made desolate.” It is to be noticed that the first clause here agrees with the LXX. It is possible that “and he prospered” is a doublet, being read for in some copy. The Peshitta differs from beth the Greek versions, “Until it arrive to the chiefs of the host, and by it was set up in perpetuity, and preparing he strengthened the sanctuary,” and while it is difficult to understand the origin of the variation in the first clause, it is clear that in the second clause the translator must have read hishleem for hooshlak. The one thing that seems clear is that the reading of the K’thib is to be preferred. We should read hayreem, not hooram. Only the first of these could be read “mountains.” If we translate the words as they stand, we shall certainly be removed out of the region of all the commentators. It is assumed that “the little horn” is the subject of this sentence; but “horn” is feminine in Hebrew, and the verbs here are in the masculine; this is against it being the nominative. The “prince of the host,” then, must be the nominative of the verbs and subject of the sentence. The rendering of the first clause ought to be, then, “Until the prince of the host magnify himself (1Sa 12:24), and by himself he shall offer the daily sacrifice. And he shall cast down the foundation of his holy place,” reading hishlayk instead of hooshlak. We should feel strongly in. clined to transfer the first “and” to hayreem, and, changing the punctuation, read, “Until the prince of the host shall make himself greater than he”viz, the tyrant represented by “the little horn””and shall offer the daily sacrifice.” If we might read hishleem with the Peshitta instead of hooshlak, we get a satisfactory meaning to the last clause, in which case we should render, “He shall complete the place of his sanctuary.” We would understand by “complete,” “to perfectly purify.” Taking the Massoretic text thus with little modification, we have a description of the successes of Judas Maccabseus, who was prince of the host, and as such became stronger than Epiphanes, and then cleansed the temple, and offered the continual daily sacrifice. We give, as a curiosity, the note of Saadiah Gaon: “The King of Ishmael was more powerful than the kings of Rome who had Jerusalem, and he took Jerusalem from them by force.”
Dan 8:12
And an host was given him against the daily sacrifice by reason of transgression, and it cast down the truth to the ground; and it practised, and prospered. The renderings of the LXX. and Theodotion are closely related, and both differ from the Massoretic text. The first is, “And the sins were upon the sacrifice, and righteousness was fallen to the earth, and he (or, it) did, and prospered.” Theodotion renders, “And sin was placed (given) upon the sacrifice, and righteousness is fallen to the earth, and he (it) did and prospered.” The Peshitta is nearer the Massoretic text, but better in accordance with the Authorized Version, “A host was given against the perpetuity, in transgression the holy place was thrown to the ground, and he did and prospered.” From the fact that (tzaba) is omitted from the two Greek versions, we venture to omit it also; it has probably been inserted from the verse above. Both versions also omit the preposition before” transgression;” we omit it also. We would thus render, “And transgression was upon the sacrifice, and,” reading , “truth was cast to the ground, and it did and prospered.” After Judas Maccabaeus had cleansed the temple and offered sacrifices, sin mingled with it. We know that the stricter Hasidim, objected to the foreign alliances into which the Maccabees were inclined to enter; the battle of Beth-zecharias was largely lost by the abstention of the stricter party. After that, Lysias, representing really the same movement as Epiphanes, advanced to the capture of Bethshur. Thus it might be said of the little horn, that “it did and prospered.” Were it not that there is no authority for it in the versions, we should read instead of . In that ease we should render, “And transgression was upon the sacrifice”regarding this sacrifice as the atonement for the transgression (Le 16:21)”and truth shall make peace in the land, and do and prosper.”
Dan 8:13
Then I heard one saint speaking, and another saint said unto that certain saint which spake, How long shall be the vision concerning the daily sacrifice, and the transgression of desolation, to give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot? Our Authorized rendering is clearly mistaken; it ought not to be “saint,” but “holy one,” as in the Revised Version. The versions leave palmoni, “a certain one,” untranslated. Fust’s suggestion, held also by Behrmann, is that this is a contraction for paloni almoni. The renderings of the versions are worthy of note. The LXX; “And I heard one holy one speaking, and another holy one said to Phehnouni who spoke, How long shall the vision stand, and the removed sacrifice, and the sin of desolation given, and the holy place be desolate to be trodden underfoot ( )?“ Here the word , “shall stand,” is supposed by Professor Bevan to be an addition by one who did not fully comprehend the sentence. Following Gratz, Professor Bevan suggests a word, (mooram), “removed,” to explain the presence of a suggestion that appears well-founded. His further suggestion, that sin (), “to set up,” has been read instead of shomaym (), must be due to inattention to the Greek. In it there is nothing about “set up,” unless he transfers from its place in the beginning of the sentence to the middle, and changes it to the active voice. Equally extraordinary is the suggestion that the translators read , instead of . The truth is, the introduction of is probably due to a gloss or a confluence of readings. Theodotion is in close agreement with the Septuagint, save in the last clause, which he renders, “And the sanctuary and the power be trodden underfoot.” The Peshitta is closer to the Massoretic, “And I heard a holy one who spake, and a holy one said to palmoni, who spake, When shall the vision of the perpetuity (daily sacrifice?), and of sin and of corruption be completed, and the holy place and the host be trodden underfoot?” The translators must have read shahata instead of shomaym. “Completed,” neshtlem, may have been added, as in the Greek, but the fact that all the versions have a word not represented in the Massoretic would indicate the probability that something has dropped out. Some part of the verb is suggested by the Greek Version, whereas some portion of is suggested by the Peshitta. Daniel hears one of those watching angels who desire to look into the evolution of the Divine purpose concerning man and his salvation, asking another, “How long shall be the desolation of Jerusalem under Epiphanes?” The irregular construction here suggests corruption. We would render the speech of the angel, “How longthe vision, the sacrificethe sin of desolation to give the sanctuary and the service to be trodden underfoot?” as if Daniel had only heard snatches of what was said; we would, we may say, omit the “and” before “sanctuary.” The Septuagint translators may have omitted (tzaba), thinking only of its ordinary meaning, “host,” forgetful of the fact that it is used of the temple service in Num 4:23. These angels are most interested in the length of time that the sanctuary shall remain desolate. This may indicate that it was evident, from the vision, that the period of desolation was a limited one. The scene presented to the imagination is striking. The seer, as he gazes on the vision appearing to him over the marsh at Susa, hears angelic voices that direct attention to what was most important to him and to his people. To the Israelites of the period of the Maccabees, the length of time that the temple service would be in abeyance was of the highest importance. It was well that they should know that the time was shortened for the elect’s sake.
Dan 8:14
And he said unto me, Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed. The Massoretic reading is here clearly corrupt. “Unto me” ought to be “unto him,” as proved by the versions and necessitated by sense. The LXX. is somewhat violent in construction, but means, “And he said to him, Until evenings and mornings are two thousand three hundred days, and the sanctuary shall be purified.” Theodotion agrees closely with the LXX; only he has “five hundred” instead of “three hundred.” The Peshitta agrees with the Massoretic, save as above mentioned”him” instead of “me,” and the last clause, which ought naturally to rendered “and the sacrifice be purified.” The Hebrew phrase for this clause is an unnatural oneit might be rendered, “And holiness (or, ‘holy thing,’ ‘offering’) shall be justified.” The want of the article is not an objection, as the manner of the author is to use the article sparingly. The word translated “cleansed” really means “justified;” it is the only example of this part of the verb. All the versions translate as if the word had been some derivative of (tahar). The period referred to is that between the desolation inflicted on the temple by Antiochus Epiphanes and its cleansing by Judas Maccabaeus. It is somewhat difficult to fix the exact space of time intended by these two thousand three hundred evening-mornings. Does it mean two thousand three hundred days? For this may be urged that this succession. “evening and morning,” not “morning and evening,” resembles Gen 1:1-31. If this resemblance is intentional, then “evening-morning” means a space of twenty-four hours. If the days are literal days, then the space of time would amount to nearly six years and a half, if’ we take the year here as three hundred and sixty days. Another view is that day and night are separated and each reckoned; hence the number of days involved would be eleven hundred and fiftyfifty-five days more than three average years, and seventy days more than three years of three hundred and sixty days each. If, however, the year be the lunar year of three hundred and fifty-four days, it closely approximates to three years and a quarter. The period that one would naturally think of is that between the setting up of the abomination of desolation (1 Macc. 1:54), on the fifteenth day of Casleu, in the hundred and forty-fifth year of the Seleucid era to the rededication of the temple on the twenty-fifth of Casleu, in the hundred and forty-eighth year, but that is only three years and ten days. If the first and last of these years were respectively the fifth and seventh of a metonic cycle, in each of which there were intercalary months, then there is only a difference of eighteen days between the interval given above and the actual historical interval. If, however, we are to believe Maerobius (‘Satur.,’ Gen 1:13, 9), and hold that the intercalations were supplied by adding the three months in one year, if one of the years in question was the year in the cycle in which this took place, then the interval would be twelve days too much. In either case the difference is very small. The attempt to take the interval as two thousand three hundred days leads to very arbitrary results. Behrmann takes the victory of Adasa, which Judas gained over Nicanor, as the termination of the perioda purely arbitrary date, and reckons back to the displacement of Onias, another date that, so far as can be seen, was not regarded as of importance by the Jews, however important it has become in the eye of critics.
Dan 8:15
And it came to pass, when I, even I Daniel, had seen the vision, and sought for the meaning, then, behold, there stood before me as the appearance of a man. The versions here are unimportant. Daniel desires to understand the meaning of this vision. From this we see that, at the time when this book was written, it was understood that prophets might be ignorant of the meaning of the revelations made to them. This is at variance with the assumption of even believing critics, that if a prophecy were given to a prophet, he must have understood the reference of the message. On the accuracy of this assumption, they found the rejection of any interpretation of a prophecy which sees more in it than the prophet could have seen. This latest critical date of Daniel is separated by approximately two centuries and a half from prophecy in actual existence in Malachi. The tradition of the conditions of the phenomenon would still be vital. The phrase before us probably means that Daniel applied the various Babylonian formulae to the dream, to find the interpretation , but, suspicious of them, he still continued his search. In answer to Daniel’s search, there stood before him one having “the appearance of a man (gaber)”an angelic being in human form. The H,.brew word translated “man” is gaber, which suggests the name given to the angel, “Gabriel.“
Dan 8:16
And I heard a man’s voice between the hanks of Ulai, which called, and said, Gabriel, make this man to understand the vision. The Septuagint has an addition, “And the man called out, saying, To that purpose is the vision.“ This seems to be a gloss. Theodotion and the Peshita agree with the Massoretic, only that Theodotion does not indicate the difference of the word used for “man” in this verse from that in Dan 8:15, and renders Ulai “Oubeh“ “Between Ulai” is a singular phrase. The versions do not attempt any solution. The preposition bayin means usually “between.” If we assume that the river Ulai is here meant, and that it divided into two branches, the thing is explicable. Only it would have been more in accordance with usage to have put “Ulai” in the plural. It may, perhaps refer to the marsh, in which case it might be between the citadel and the marsh. Daniel had seen the appearance of a man; now he hears a voice addressing the man, and naming him Gabriel, “Hero of God.” It is to be noted that this is the earliest instance of the naming of angels in Scripture. In the tenth chapter Michael is also named. These are the only angelic names in the whole of Scripture. These two names, and these alone, recur in the New Testament, the first of them in the first chapter of Luke, and the second in Rev 12:7 and Jude. The Book of Tobit added another angelic name on the same lines, Raphael. When we pass to the Books of Enoch, we have moat elaborate hierarchies of angels, in all of which, however much they may otherwise differ, occur the two angels mentioned here and Raphael. The difference in atmosphere between the elaborate angelology of Enoch and the reticent accounts in the book before us is great. It is hardly possible to imagine so great a difference between the works of men that were all but contemporaries. The function assigned to Gabriel here is in accordance with that he fulfils in the New Testamenthe is to make Daniel “understand the vision.”
Dan 8:17
So he came near where I stood: and when he came, I was afraid, and fell upon my face: but he said unto me, Understand, O son of man: for at the time of the end shall be the vision. The versions are here in close agreement with the Massoretic text. On Gabriel’s approach Daniel fell on his face, overwhelmed at contact with the spiritual. It is mentioned as if this were the natural result of such an interview as that vouchsafed to Daniel. At first sight this contradicts Dan 7:16, where Daniel interrogates one of the angelic bystanders. In the first place, Dan 7:15 shows that Daniel had been grieved and disturbed before he ventured on the question; and, next, Gabriel was one of the great angels that stood before God. Gabriel addressed Daniel by the title so often given to Ezekiel, “son of man,” ben-adam. Professor Fuller, and also Kranichfeld, remark on the contrast between Gabriel, “Hero of God,” and ben-adam, “son of man” The time of the end does not mean the end of the world, or of the appearance of the Messiah, for in this vision there is no reference to either of these. It is rather to be rendered, after the analogy of Jer 1:1-19 :26, where miqqetz means “from the utmost border,” and reaches to a far-off time.
Dan 8:18
Now as he was speaking with me, I was in a deep sleep on my face toward the ground; but he touched me, and set me upright. The LXX. joins the opening words of the next verse to this. I was in a deep sleep suggests the case of the three apostles, Peter, James, and John, on the Mount of Transfiguration (Luk 9:1-62 :82). The numbing effect of the presence of the supernatural produces a state analogous to sleep, yet “the eyes are open” (Num 24:4) the senses are ready to convey impressions to the mind. The angel, however, touched Daniel, and set him upright.
Dan 8:19
And he said, Behold, I will make thee know what shall be in the last end of the indignation: for at the time appointed the end shall be. The Septuagint here inserts a clause after “indignation.” It reads, “on the children of thy people.” It may have been inserted from Dan 12:1, only it is used in such a different sense that that does not seem very likely. It may have been in the original text, and dropped out not unlikely by homoioteleuton. The missing clause would be , the last word of which is like two. On the other hand, its omission from Theodotion and the Peshitta is not so easily intelligible. Theodotion is in close agreement with the Massoretic text. The Peshitta is more brief, practically omitting the last clause. We have here the reference to the end, as in verse 17 it is not the end of the world that is in the mind of the writer, but the “end of the indignation.” The Jews, while maintaining their gallant struggle against Epiphanes, have need of being assured that the battle will have an end, and one determined before by God, The angel has to make Daniel know the end of the indignation. It may be said that the present time, when Israel has neither country nor city, is one of indignation; but the immediate reference is to the persecution against the Jews inaugurated by Epiphanes.
Dan 8:20
The ram which thou sawest having two horns are the kings of Media and Persia. All the versionsthe Septuagint, Theodotion, the Peshitta, and the Vulgatehave read, not , as we find in the Massoretic text, but The ancient construct case in Hebrew was formed by adding to the root. Possibly this may be a survival of that usage. In this case the change is due to scribal blunder. When we turn to Jer 25:25 and Jer 51:11, Jer 51:58, we have the same phrases used as here: this is probably the origin of the blunder. For any one to ground an argument, as does Professor Bevan, on this, and maintain that it proves the writer to have held that there were two separate empiresone of Media, and the other of Persiais absurd. When the true reading is adopted, this passage proves the very reverse of that for which Professor Bevan contends. The reasoning of Kliefoth, that the distinction between plural and singular points to the fact that, while several kings reigned ever the Persian Empire, only one ruled over the Greek, is very ingenious, but, unfortunately, it has no foundation in fact. “King,” it may be observed, stands for dynasty, only that in the crisis of history, when the two powers encountered, each was ruled and represented by one kingPersia by Darius Codomannus, and Greece by Alexander.
Dan 8:21
And the rough goat is the King of Grecia; and the great horn that is between his eyes is the first king. Again all the versions agree in omitting the word “rough,” and in inserting “of the goats,” as in the fifth verse. The authority of these is much too great to be resisted. The Massoretic reading is probably due to a confluence of readings, as the word translated “rough” also means “goats.” The omission of the word “of the goats” is probably due to the inclusion of (saeer). Here, as in the previous case, “king” stands for dynasty; and this is proved by the fact that there is implied a series of kings, of whom the great horn is the first.
Dan 8:22
Now that being broken, whereas four stood up for it, four kingdoms shall stand up out of the nation, but not in his power. The LXX; if we take the reading of the Roman edition, agrees with the Masso-retie, save in the last clause, where it reads, “their power” instead of “his power.” In this variation we find also Theodotion and the Peshitta agreeing. Jerome has “ejus.“ It is difficult to decide what is the true reading here. In the reading of the older versions the meaning is that these kings which should succeed Alexander should not be mighty. The reading of the Massoretic and Jerome implies a direct and natural comparison with Alexander the Great. As for the Greek versions, is easily mistaken for in uncial manuscripts. As for the Syriac, see Syriac character, is apt to be added to, see Syriac character, of the third person, and produce the difference we find. While the Greek versions and Jerome render, “his nation” instead of “the nation,” as in the Massoretic, the Peshitta follows the Massoretic , which is wrong here. The point of the contrast is that the kings that succeeded Alexander were not of his family. Certainly none of the successors of Alexander had an empire nearly so extensive as his. The only one that really even comes into comparison with the empire of Alexander is that of Seleucus Nicator. But not only had he neither European nor African dominions, he did not possess, save for a little while. Asia Minor, nor Palestine, nor India beyond the Indus at all. The Parthian Empire seen sprang up, and wrested from the Solenoid a large portion of their possessions east of the Euphrates. It can well be said, even of the empire of Seleucus, that it had not the power of that of Alexander the Great.
Dan 8:23
And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall stand up. The versions here are, on the whole, in agreement with the Massoretic. The Greek versions read, “their sins,” as if it were the iniquities of the successors of Alexander that had become full, and thus afforded the occasion of the appearance of Epiphanes. The Peshitta and Jerome have “iniquities” generally, without reference to the kings, but with probable reference to the Jewish people. The probability is decidedly in favour of the Massoretic reading; it was an easy suggestion that the iniquities to be punished were those of the heathen kings. The whole analogy of Scripture leads us to look at the iniquity of the people of God being the cause of evil befalling them. Certainly immediately before the persecution inflicted on the Jews by Antiochus, the progress of the unbelieving Hellenizing party had been very great, as we see by 1 Macc. 1:13-16. It was “like people, like priest;” the people devoted themselves to Grecian games with all their heathen associations, and strove to hide their Hebrew origin and the covenant of their faith, and high priests were ready to abet their practices. A king of fierce countenance; “strong of countenance.” This refers to courage and success in war. Thus Amaziah (2Ki 14:8), when he wishes to challenge Joash King of Israel, desires to “look in his face.” Epiphanes’ countenance was one that could successfully stand a hostile meeting. The Greek versions render (az) by , “reckless.“ Understanding dark sentences. There may be some reference to incantations and superstitious observances; it may mean that he was well acquainted with omens, and how to benefit by them. Regardlessness in the matter of religion was a prominent characteristic of Antiochus; but it is quite a possible thing that, like most irreligious men, he was superstitious. He certainly was very keen-sighted in observing the political signs of the times, and very adroit at availing himself of what made for his own advantage. This last is the interpretation of Ewald. Zckler and Hitzig think it means that the king here pictured “will be cunning to hide his own designs from friend and foe.” Yet more common is the view of Keil, Behrmann, Stuart, and Bevan, that it refers generally to his mastery in the use of artifice. The main difficulty in regard to this view is that usage, does not support assigning such a meaning to heedoth. On the other hand, when we bear in mind that here we have the language of symbol and prophecy, so tricks of strategy and chicane of policy may all be symbolized by “dark sayings,” without necessary reference to sentences such as those with which the Queen of Sheba tested the wisdom of Solomon.
Dan 8:24
And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power: and he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper, and practise, and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people. This verse involves many difficulties, grammatical and exegetical. These difficulties may be said to be present in all the versions of this passage. The LXX. renders, “And his power shall be confirmed, and not in his strength, and he shall destroy marvellously, and prosper and do, and shall destroy the rulers and people of the saints.” Theodotion is so far slavishly close to the Massoretic text; but he seems to have read qodesh, an adjective agreeing with “people,” instead of qedosheem, “saints;” and he omits the negative clause. The Peshitta is very close to the Massoretic. It emphasizes the negative clause by adding denaphsho, and translates “wonders“ instead of “wonderfully.” Jerome, more intent on expressing what is his own interpretation of the passage than on representing- the original, translates the first heel (“power”) by fortitude, and the second by viribus suis. That the power of Epiphanes was greatgreater than that of his brother and immediate predecessoris undoubted. It is also the ease that lie was confirmed in Iris place by the Romans, though, if we are to receive the account of Appian, the direct means of his elevation to the throne was the intervention of Eumenes of Pergamus on his behalf. Thus the reference of the phrase, “not by his own power,” may be to this. Little as he might brook the thought, he was but a subject-ally of the great republic. The other interpretations are
(1) that of Theodoret. Keil, Fuller, Havernick. Kranichfeld. and Moses Stuart, that the reference here is to Divine power as setting up Epiphanes to be a scourge to his people;
(2) that of von Lengerke, Kliefoth, Bevan, Behrmann, etc; not by might, but by his cunning;
(3) that of Hitzig, which combines the twohis cunning is divinely given;
(4) that of Calvin and Ewald, that the contrast is with the might of Alexander the Great.
All of these have something to favour them, but also something against them. There is against the first that there is no reference in the context to the fact, true though it was, that Antiochus was raised up by God for his own purposes. Against the second is the pronominal suffix, which would be needless if the contrast were between force and fraud. Of course, Hitzig’s combination falls with this. Against the view advocated by Calvin and Ewald is the fact that it seems a long time to hold the reference to Alexander in abeyance. Still, it may be urged that the vision was before the prophet; on the other hand, the relative strength of Epiphanes and Alexander does not seem to be of importance. We still think that the real reference is to the fact that he did not attain the throne either by inheritance or by his own prowess, but by the help and authority of others, namely, Eumencs and Rome. And he shall destroy wonderfully. Gratz thinks yasheeth, “destroy,” suspicious, and Professor Bevan suggests , (yaseeh), and would render, “He shall utter monstrous things;” but, unfortunately for his view, there is no hint in the versions of any difficulty as to the reading, and, further, (sooh) does not mean “utter,” but “meditate.” We must take the words as they stand (comp. Jdg 13:19), and translate, “He shall destroy portentously.” Certainly Epiphanes was to the Jews a portent of destruction; there had not been his likenot Nebuchadnezzar, who burned the temple, was to be compared to him who endeavoured to blot out the worship of Jehovah altogether: not any other of the Greek monarchs. He was unique in his enmity against God and his worship. He shall destroy the mighty and the holy people. The rendering of the Revised Version better conveys the sense of the original, “He shall destroy the mighty ones.” There has been discussion as to the distinction involved here. Ewald regards the mighty as the three other horns of the ten (Dan 7:8)an interpretation which proceeds in the false identification of the fourth beast with the Greek Empire. Rashi imagines the star-worshippers; this seems the height of caprice. Jephet-ibn-Ali, who identifies the little horn with Mahommed, holds the “mighty” to be the Romans. Keil and Fuller hold it to be the heathen rulers generally. Von Lengerke, Kliefoth, and others maintain it refers to the rich of the holy people, while (am) are the poor. Hitzig refers it to the three claimants for the crown, whom Antiochus is alleged, on somewhat insufficient evidence, to have overthrown; Behrmann and Zckler, to the political and warlike enemies of Epiphanes, in contrast to the holy people, who were unwarlike. Kranichfeld refers it to the rulers of Israel, as distinct from the people; Calvin to “neighbouring nations.” Moses Stuart would render, “great numbers, even the people of the saints;” while Professor Bevan thinks there is an interpolation here, and adopts a reading of Gratz from the LXX. for the beginning of the following verse. On the whole, this seems the best solution of the difficulty. After Epiphanes had destroyed the “mighty,” that is to say, the political enemies he had, the Egyptians, etc; he directed his mind the “people of the saints.”
Dan 8:25
And through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand; and he shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many: he shall also stand up against the Prince of princes; but he shall be broken without hand. The versions here are at variance with each other and. with the Massoretic recension. The LXX. renders, “And against the saints shall his purpose be”evidently reading, as suggested by Gratz, val qedosheem siklo“and craft shall prosper in his hands, and his heart shall be lifted up, and by treachery he shall destroy many, and for the destruction of men shall he stand, and he shall make a gathering of power, and shall sell (it).” Theodotion is, in regard to the first clause, considerably more at variance with the Massorctic, “And the yoke of his collar (or chain) shall prosper.” Evidently Theodotion had read (ol), “yoke,” instead of (al), “upon,” and probably (sib’lo), “his burden,” instead of (sik’lo), “his thought.” “And in his heart he shall be magnified, and by treachery shall he corrupt many. and for the destruction of many. shall he stand, and as eggs shall he crush (them) in his hand,” reading kebaytzeem beyad yishbar instead of be’eseph yad yishahabayr. The Peshitta has several points of peculiarity, “And in his might he shall prosper: he shall restrain with his hand, and his heart shall be lifted up, and by treachery shall he corrupt many. and against the Ruler of rulers shall he rise up, and with grasp of the hand shall be taken.” Even Jerome,. who is usually in close agreement with the Massoretic text, translates at variance with their pointing. He begins this verse really with the last clause of the previous one, “And he shall slay strong ones and the people of the saints according to his will, and treachery shall be directed in his hand, and in plenty of all things he shall slay many, and against the Prince of princes shall he rise, and without hand shall be broken.” The most singular thing is the omission by both the Greek versions of the phrase sar sareem, which both appear to have read yishhat rabbeem a variation of reading difficult to understand. On the whole, these varying versions seem to have sprung from a text originally not differing much from the Massoretic, save in the opening clause, in which the Septuagint appears to suit the succession of thought better. The return of Antiochus from his expedition to Egypt was the signal for his persecution of the saints; then his “purpose, was against the holy people.” Craft shall prosper in his hand. The account we have in the First Book of the Maccabees shows the perpetual exercise by Antiochus and those under him of treachery. At first, at all events, his craft prospered (1 Macc. 1:30). And he shall magnify himself in his heart. Bevan thinks this hardly accurate, as the hiphil is ordinarily causative. Only Zep 2:8 has this verb used in hiphil as reflexive. The sense, however, seems to be, not that he shall become proud, but that he has many great projects in his mind one (1 Macc. 1:42) being to unify all the various peoples that were under his sceptre, so that they should be one in religion and law. He further had the design of conquering Egypt and uniting it to his empire, and would have done so had the Romans not intervened. And by peace shall destroy many. The word translated “peace” means also “suddenly.“ The Greek versions both render it by . Schleusner suggests that the word was derived from another root. There dues not seem such a root in Levy. The probability is that the meaning passed from “tranquillity” to the notion of “treachery.” The meaning assigned to the word by Jerome is inexplicable, copia rerum. It happens that both the meaning attached to the word shalvah by the Greek versions here, and that found in other passages, harmonize. The treachery of the chief collector of tribute lay in feigning peace, and then slaying the people (1 Macc. 1:29). He shall also stand up against the Prince of princes. The Greek versions, as above observed, have instead of this, a phrase that might be a rendering of . The Massoretic text here seems the preferable. Antiochus had certainly risen up against God, the “Prince of princes,” or, as the Peshitta renders, “Ruler of rulers.” He shall be broken without hand. The fact of Antiochus dying immediately after an ineffectual attempt to rob a temple in Elymais, and dying, not from the effect of wounds received, but from chagrin, is symbolized by this statement. The figure of a horn pushing in this direction and in that is resumed; hence Epiphanes is said to be broken. And that he was not overthrown in battle by any rival for the crown is shown by the statement that it was without hands that he was so broken. The Romans resisted his attempt to take possession of Egypt, so he was baulked in his pursuit after one object. He desired to unite his whole multifarious empire, so that it should be homogeneous; that was baulked by the victorious revolt of the Jews under Judas Maccabaeus. If he could have made his empire homogeneous, he might have expected to be able to defy the Romans. The defeat of his army by Judas might easily be remedied if he had money to pay his troops, so he attempted the plunder of the temple in Elymais, said to be that of Artemis. The inhabitants resisted so vehemently, that he had to retire baffled. This it was that caused his death. Polybius hints at madness inflicted by a Divine hand.
Dan 8:26
And the vision of the evening and the morning which was told is true: wherefore shut thou up the vision; for it shall be for many days. The rendering of the LXX. here is, “The vision of the evening and morning was found true, and tile vision has been secured for many days.” (asher neemar) has been read , although it is difficult to see the genesis of such a reading from the Massoretic , or vice versa. The LXX. rendering of ought to be observednot “shut up,” in the sense of being “sealed,” but “defended from interference by being secured as with a hedge.” Theodotion and the Peshitta agree with the Massoretic text, but have , construct of . The vision of the evening and the morning refers to Dan 8:14. The phrase used. here differs by the insertion of the definite article: but this merely intimates a reference. This statement does not mean that the period indicated by the two thousand three hundred evenings and mornings would end with the death of Antiochus. Certainly, his death occurred in the year following the cleansing of the temple (1 Macc. 6:16). If the writer reckons the beginning of the year according to the Macedonian Calendar, almost a year must have elapsed between the temple-cleansing and the death of Antiochus; but it is the cleansing that is the terminus ad quem, not the death of Antiochus. The pollution of the temple was the event that, of all others, would be trying to the faith and patience of Jewish believers; therefore attention is directed to this. As the beginning of this season of trial is the point to which the whole history of the Greek Empire travels, so the termination of this desecration is the end contemplated. Shut thou up the vision. Certainly the verb satham means sometimes “to hide;” and it is also certain that it is a characteristic of apocalyptic literature to contain, in the text, elaborate directions fur hiding the vision; e.g. the Apocalypse of Moses. It has been argued that this is a preparation for the publication of Daniel in the age of the Maccabees, so long after the date at which it purports to be written. But there is no description of how the book is to be hidden, as in the Assumption of Moses. Moreover, the translators of the LXX. did not understand satham as “hide.” If it had been hidden, and had been discovered, he would have known and translated accordingly. Then when we turn to the next verse, we find that Daniel himself did not understand the command as meaning that he was to keep the vision secret from his contemporaries; so far from that being the case, one at’ his reasons for distress is that no one understood the vision. The vision shall be far many days. That is to say, that a long interval divided the time when the revelation was made from the time of its fulfilment (Eze 12:27); the vision he sees is for many days to come. Before the beginning of the history revealed to Daniel, certainly not many years intervened; but between the days of Belshazzar and those of Antiochus was an interval of approximately four centuries. The Persian Empire rose and fell, and the Macedonian Empire rose and was approaching its fall. At the end of the period, the light of the vision fell most clearly. It was not necessary that Daniel should know the events portrayed to foretell them truly, any more than it was needful that the Second Isaiah should know the exact historical events portrayed so clearly in his fifty-third chapter. Daniel could not fail to know of Persia, and it even did not require more than a knowledge of the past, and ordinary powers of political forecast, to see that Cyrus might, and probably would, found a world-empire. He knew of the Greeks: there were Greeks in the army of Nebuchadnezzar. Moreover, we learn from Herodotus (1.77) that Nabu-nahid Labynetus had made an alliance with Croesus, in order to check the advance of Cyrus. We know from Herodotus (1:26, 27) that Croesus subdued all the Greek cities in Asia Minor. To Daniel, who possibly had favoured this alliance with the Western monarch, the King of Javan would mean, not Alexander the Great, as it means to us, but Croesus. But his hopes that Babylon will be delivered by the help of Croesus are shown to be groundless, by the intimation that it will be “for many days.” The intimation that he had made to Belshazzar, of the interpretation of the inscription on the palace wall, did not necessarily, in his mind, militate against the hope that repentance might lead to respite. Daniel may have made use of political expedients to help in the result he wished.
Dan 8:27
And I Daniel fainted, and was sick certain days; afterward I rose up, and did the king’s business; and I was astonished at the vision, but none understood it. The Septuagint omits “fainted,” but otherwise agrees with the above. Theodotion evidently has lind the Massoretic text before him; but he has not understood, and has slavishly rendered it word for word. The Peshitta represents also a text practically identical with that of the Massoretes. Jerome also agrees with the received text; he renders the last clause, non erat qui interpretaretur. That Daniel should faint, and remain sick for days”many days,” says the LXX.is quite in accordance with what we might imagine to be the natural effect of intercourse with the spiritual world. The mental strain and the intense excitement incident upon such an occurrence would necessarily produce a reaction. Afterward I rose up, and did the king‘s business. We have no distinct evidence of what the business was that took Daniel to Susa, if he was there in reality, and not merely in vision; but we may surmise that it was about the advance of Cyrus Elam and Media were both embraced in the dominion of Cyrus very early. Cyrus had overthrown the Umman-Manda, and delivered Babylon. At that time there seems to have been somewhat of a rapprochement between Nabu-nahid and Cyrus; but at the time before us, Cyrus must have begun to realize his destiny, and possibly would not be easy to on. at with. Daniel may have been plenipotentiary of Babylon at the court of Cyrus, endeavouring to secure a treaty. At the same time, aware that Croesus, the rival of Cyrus, might be called in, he continues the negotiation. I was astonished at the vision, but none understood it. The idea of the word translated “astonished” is “benumbed;” it may be exegetic of the first clause, explaining the cause of the fainting and subsequent sickness. It is clear that Daniel did not regard the command “to guard (satham) the vision” as implying that he should keep it secret. We see, as we said above, that his complaint is that no one understood the vision. Behrmann maintains that (maybeen), “to understand,” ought to be translated “marked,” “observed,” but would be the natural verb to use in such a connection, not . Hitzig explains this by saying, “He had imparted the vision to no one.” If Daniel had indulged in statements of float kind, the word before us would not have inaugurated a new form of literature. Professor Bevan’s interpretation is as farfetched, “And I was no understander thereof.” The example he brings forward of verse 5 is not to the purpose, because the distinction between the first person and the third is too great. Moses Stuart has the same view.
HOMILETICS
Dan 8:1-14
The triumph of evil.
I. THE DARK SIDE OF THE TRIUMPH OF EVIL. Evil is sometimes not only powerful, but ascendant and dominant, apparently sweeping all before it.
1. Evil is destructive. Kingdoms under the sway of evil become mutually destructive. The successive visions of the world-empires represent them with increasingly destructive characteristics. The first brings before us a monstrous image of incongruous elements, but with a certain unity and peaceful relation of parts (Dan 2:1-49.). The second shows us a series of ravenous beasts, which, however, are not represented as all fighting one with another (Dan 7:1-28.). The third introduces us to animals, by nature peaceful, in fierce mutually destructive conflict. Thus as the knowledge of the evil kingdoms grows, they are seen to be more destructive, even in their most peaceful relations. The more we see of evil the more shall we feel its essentially destructive character (Jas 1:15).
2. The world without God deteriorates. These kingdoms get worse and worse. The moral progress of mankind is dependent on our relation to Godon our submission to his redemptive and educational influence. When these are discarded, morality declines.
3. When evil triumphs in the state, the exercise of religious ordinances is endangered (Dan 8:11). Persecution usually has a moral cause. The protest of pure public worship is regarded as a danger to the sway of wickedness.
4. Evil is inimical to truth, and when it triumphs truth suffers. Evil is darkness; it is essentially a lie (Joh 8:44). Truth is a protest against evil, therefore evil “casts truth to the ground” (Dan 8:12; see 2Th 2:11).
5. Evil gains power from its prosperity. It “practices and prospers.” When it flourishes it puts on an imposing appearance and grows by popularity. Thus the more it prospers the more it tends to prosper.
II. THE LIGHT SIDE OF THE TRIUMPH OF EVIL. I. It is fores, on and predicted. Therefore it should not surprise us. It was foreknown by God from the Creation. It was known when the promises of Divine blessing were given. All the plans of Providence were made in view of it. Yet they are bright and hopeful (Rom 8:19-23).
2. It is converted into a chastisement for sin and a means of purifying those who suffer by it. Though wicked men may only intend harm to God’s people, the wrong they do may be the means of the highest good.
3. Its duration is limited. A period is named for the termination of its sway (Dan 8:13, Dan 8:14). Evil is but for a time, and this is short compared with eternity. God holds power over it and fixes its limitations.
4. Ultimately evil shall be entirely cast out. Then the triumph of goodness will be the greater by its contrast with the sway of evil. The glory of Christ in redeeming from sin and restoring the world to God is only possible after evil has had an opportunity of asserting its power (2Th 2:7, 2Th 2:8).
Dan 8:23-25
Subtle sin.
We have here a description of a terrible evil power which, in manner and appearance, is deceptively harmless, and yet which is really most destructive and wicked and destined to detection and overthrow.
I. EVIL WORKS MOST EFFECTIVELY WHEN IT HIDES ITS TRUE CHARACTER.
1. It works under a fair show. The king has “an insolent countenance” and “magnifies himself in his heart.” There is a bold self-assertion and an apparent frankness which sometimes blind men to the falsehood beneath.
2. It works by craft, as much as by force. The king “understands dark stratagems” and “craft prospers under his band.” The tempter is more successful when he appears as the subtle serpent than when he comes as a raging lion. Transformed into an angel of light, he persuades by deceit. Intellect is a more dangerous weapon in the hands of a bad man than mere brute force.
3. It turns peaceful prosperity into a means of harm. Warfare and persecution are less dangerous than the insidious temptations of luxurious vices and flattering indolence.
II. THOUGH EVIL MAY BE OBSCURE TO US, ITS CHARACTER AND DESTINY ARE NOT CHANGED.
1. It is still destructive. This crafty and peace-loving king is really as destructive as the old warlike monarch. Sin is not the less fated because it wears a fair mask.
2. It is still only the abuse of Divine gifts. The king is mighty, “but not by his own power.” All sin is only possible by the abuse of talents lent us by God. The boldness of self-assertion is no proof of independence and liberty to pursue our own course.
3. It is still defiance of the will of God. “He shall stand up against the Prince of princes.” We may rebel against God with a smile as much as with a frown. Guilt is not measured by manners, but by motives. Crafty treachery is not less guilty than open rebellion.
4. It is still destined to judgment and overthrow. We may deceive men; we cannot deceive God (Rom 2:16). God also “understands the dark stratagems” of subtle wickedness. They will be detected and defeated. The punishment of sins of subtlety and craft is as certain as that of sins of open and confessed guilt.
HOMILIES BY H.T. ROBJOHNS
Dan 8:2, Dan 8:13, Dan 8:15
Modes of supersensual vision.
“I saw in a vision” (Dan 8:2); “Then I heard one saint speaking, and another saint” (Dan 8:13); “Behold, there stood before me as the appearance of a man” (Dan 8:15). Of the next vision, the time should be notedtwo years after the last, Belshazzar still living; and the place, viz. Shushan. Daniel seems not to have been there in reality, but only in vision. So Ezekiel from Babylon was “brought in the visions of God to Jerusalem.” This vision concerned the overthrow of Persia, and so the prophet was placed at the centre of the empire, whence he might see the desolation coming. This vision develops dramatically:
1. We have symbols. (Verses 1-12.) Then:
2. Answering voices. (Verses 13, 14.)
3. Communication from God through Gabriel. (Verses 15-27.) This may suggest discourse on some modes of coming to the vision of supersensual truth. By
I. CONTEMPLATING PICTURES IN THE WORLD OF SENSE. Daniel was brought first into contact with symbolpicture of power and action, the ram, the goat; destruction of the ram; certain transformations of the goat. So man’s first lesson now comes through the sense-pictures of the world. This depends, as a fact, on the truth that the world is one transparency, through which is ever shining supersensual truth. Behind all phenomena of space and time lie luminous eternal truths. Consider how much we can see in and learn from:
1. Our present home of the material world
2. The life-forms with which it is crowded.
3. Common employment.
4. Social relations. How much of spiritual truth may be seen, e.g; in paternity, the family, civil constitution, law, etc.!
5. Our training through the successive incidents of life.
II. LISTENING TO ANSWERING VOICES. “Then I heard one saint,” etc. (verse 13). Here we pass to a higher realm than that of sense-pictures, into the arena of pure intelligence. An angel-voice addressed Daniel, or was about to address him, when another, interrupting, requested the first angel to afford Daniel definite information on certain points; which he did. We may learn much:
1. From the colloquy of the angels. True, we cannot hear this; but much of angel-discourse is recorded in the book. Think of Stier’s ‘Words of the Angels.’
2. From the controversies of the Church. Present and past. What have they been but contentions, out of which truth has come with a clearer definition and more resplendent aspect’?
3. From the assaults of unbelief. The indebtedness of the Church to disbelief, misbelief, and non-belief can never be accurately reckoned. Scepticism often has:
(1) Stripped the Church of untenable positions.
(2) Driven her back on deeper foundations.
(3) Corrected the interpretation of supersensual truth.
We may go a step further:
4. From the continuities of infidelities among themselves.
III. DEVOUT ATTENTION TO MAN INFORMED BY GOD. (Verse 15.) Daniel looking on the vision, behold, the apparition of a man! Gabrielthe man (the vir. not the homo) of God. To Gabriel a voicenot that of the genius of the river Ulai, but of God. Here we have intimated another way in which supersensual truth may be uncovered to man; i.e. by man, but by man informed by God. We use the word “informed” in two senses:
(1) in the grand old sensethe form filled out with spirit and power;
(2) in the more modern sense, of being instructed simply. The name “Gabriel,” equivalent to “Vir Dei,” suggests that revelation may come:
1. Through manhood. Through man at his highest, noblest, best. Through holiness unfallen, as in the case of Gabriel. Or through holiness restored, as in the case of a man. Through power, virility, genius sanctified.
2. Vitalized by God. Filled with God.
3. Spoken to by God. (Verse 16.) Note: The Divine voice has a human tone in it. We may take, as examples of this mode of revelation, the case of the text, Gabriel; any real prophet; Christ, the Divine Man; the true preacher of modern times. The first effect of Divine revelation, as with Daniel, may be consternation (verse 17); but that effect may be relieved and softened by sympathy (verse 18): “but he touched me.” Think of Christ’s healing touch.R.
Dan 8:3-8, Dan 8:20-22
Two world-empires.
“The ram which thou sawest,” etc. (Dan 8:20, Dan 8:21). The only way in which the substance of the vision can be legitimately treated seems to us the expository. But be it remembered that the exposition of a chapter like this is really an explication of the gradual unfolding of a part of the history of the kingdom of God antecedent to the Incarnation. We set up here simply directing-posts to mark the way. Note particularly the partial character of this visionit is not now of the four world-empires and of the everlasting kingdom, but only of twoPersia, Greeceand the development of Greece. And mark, the symbols are authoritatively interpreted (Dan 8:21, Dan 8:22). Here we have a key wherewith to unlock the secrets of the rest of the book.
I. PERSIA. In the symbol we have:
1. Its unity. “A ram.”
2. Its duality “Two horns.” Media and Persia.
3. Its inequality. One horn the higher; and came up last.
4. The direction of its aggression. (Dan 8:4.) Babylon; Lydia; Egypt.
5. Its temporary irresistibility. (Dan 8:4.)
6. Complete overthrow. (Dan 8:7.) Compare throughout with the bear of Dan 7:1-28.
II. GREECE. Here should be opened out:
1. The fitness of the goat as a symbol; e.g. Greece abounded in goats; several municipalities adopted it as a symbol, and struck its image on their coins, etc. See detailed Expositions.
2. Its ubiquity. “On the face of the whole earth.”
3. Celerity. “Touched not the ground.”
4. The concentration of its genius. “A notable horn.” Alexander (Dan 7:21).
5. Its victory.
(1) The conflict was within the Persian lines. “Close unto the ram.”
(2) The attack made with the concentrated wrath of Greece. “Moved with choler.” The provocation was the successive Persian invasions.
(3) Complete.
6. Its subsequent growth.
7. Sudden break-down.
III. GREECE DIVINED.
1. Into four. Greece; Asia Minor; Syria; Egypt.
2. At the zenith of power; i.e. under Alexander (Dan 7:8).
3. With instant collapse. (Dan 7:22.) “Not in his power.”R.
Dan 8:9-12, Dan 8:23-25
The scourge of Israel.
“He shall stand up against the Prince of princes; but he shall be broken without hand” (Dan 8:25). As in the previous homily, we give a mere directive outline, for the help of those who may care to make the antichrist of the later Hebrew time the subject of treatment. The sketch given by the prophet undoubtedly applies to Antiochus Epiphanes. The only question has been raised by those who wish to throw discredit on the supernatural in prophecy, and who, struck by the marvellous minuteness of Daniel’s description, have tried to show that it must have been written after the event, and therefore not by Daniel at all. Observe:
1. The general description. Out of one of the four kingdoms into which Alexander’s empire was divided, came forth a new kingdomat least a new king, with special characteristics, and with special antagonistic relations to the kingdom of God.
2. The notes of timevery remarkable. The date of the rise of Antiochus is given. “In the latter time” of the dominion of the four kingdoms “a king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall stand up.” These kingdoms were gradually absorbed into the Roman empire, but may be considered to have commenced with the defeat of Perseus at the battle of Pydna, b.c. 168. Another note: “When the transgressions are come to the full.” We understand that to be said of the state of thing,s in Judaea. There affairs were in a frightful state. We can imagine the condition when men fought for the high priesthood, and obtained it often by bribery or murder. “The sacred writers often speak of iniquity as being fullof the cup of iniquity as being fullas if there was a certain limit or capacity beyond which it could not be allowed to go. When that arrives, God interferes, and cuts off the guilty by some heavy judgment.” Such a state of things existed at Jerusalem, when Antiochus ascended the throne of Syria.
I. HIS CHARACTER was marked by:
1. Shameless audacity. “Of fierce countenance;” i.e. “hardy of countenance” (verse 23). Destitute of shame. Most conquerors respected the religion of the conquered; this man forced on the Jews his own.
2. Deceitful subtlety. Master of deceitful wiles. “Understanding dark sentences” (verse 23).
3. Power. But such advantage as he gained against Israel was “not by his own power.” By whose .9 By God’s. In what sense? The eternal law of righteousness made him its instrument, as against the iniquity of Israel.
4. Practical genius. “He shall practise” (verse 24); i.e. “he shall do;” i.e. the man was to be no mere dreamer. What he professed he would perform.
5. Destructiveness. (Verse 24.) The activity should be malicious.
II. HIS ACTION.
1. He practised deceit. (Verse 25.) “And though by peace shall destroy many.” He would destroy a people resting in an unreal security.
2. He disliked the ecclesiastical rulers in Israel. (Verse 10.) Read, The horn “waxed great against the host,” etc.
3. He acted so that the whole Hebrew commonwealth was at his mercy. (Verse 12.) Read, “A host was given [him] with the daily sacrifice, by reason of transgression.”
4. He abolished the daily sacrifice. (Verse 11.) Read, “And by him was taken away the perpetual, and was cast down the place of his sanctuary.” No doubt the daily sacrifice is principally intended, but there is given to it grandeur by designating it “the perpetual,” i.e. the everlasting changeless element in the Hebrew ritual. The undying testimony to the atonement of the Lord (Exo 29:35-44; Le Exo 6:13). Against the Redeemer’s own memorial did Antiochus lift up his hand. That struck down, the sanctuary was desolate. (See terrible description, 1 Macc. 1. Note the heroic fidelity of some, verses 63, 64.)
5. He struck at the truth. (Verse 12.)
6. He sets himself against God. “He magnified himself against the Prince of the hosts;” “He stood up against the Prince of princes” (verses 11, 25).
7. He attained to a certain sort and measure of prosperity. (Verse 9.) The reference is to Egypt, to what remained of Persia, and to Judaea.
III. THE DOOM. How sublime the prophecy! “He shall be broken without hand.” How terrible the fulfilment! He fell by an invisible blow from the King of kings. He died of grief and remorse at Babylon (1Ma Dan 1:16; 2Ma 9.).R.
Dan 8:13, Dan 8:14, Dan 8:26
Prophecy’s sure fulfilments.
“Unto evenings and mornings, two thousand and three hundred; The vision of the evening and the morning which was told is true” (Dan 8:14, Dan 8:26). Two thousand three hundred days, that is, six years and a hundred and ten days. Whence reckoned? To what time? The cleansing of the sanctuary took place under Judas Maccabaeus, December 25, b.c. 165. Reckoning back two thousand three hundred days, we come to August 1, b.c. 171. Up to this latter date the relations between Antiochus and the Jewish people had been peaceful; then began a series of aggressions, which ended only with his death. (For account of the new dedication of the temple, see 1 Macc. 4:36-61.) We suggest a homily on The certainty of the fulfilment of the Divine Word.
I. THE DEFINITENESS OF THE END. Here “the cleansing of the sanctuary.”
II.. THE EXACT MEASUREMENT OF ALL INTERMEDIATE SECOND CAUSES. The number, force, combination, duration of their action.
III. CONSEQUENT LIMIT OF TIME. In the Divine mind. Not necessarily revealed to us; though the exact number of the days was so in this case.
IV. OUR MORAL ATTITUDE. Belief in the word. Confidence in the Word-giver. Obedience, active and passive. The entertainment of a great hope. Let the sunshine of the assured future light the present.R.
Dan 8:27
The effects of visions Divine.
“And I Daniel fainted,” etc. We have here the effects of visions Divine
I. ON THE BODY. Even the prophets were but men like ourselves. Daniel was utterly prostrated by this overpowering vision. Became ill for a long time. In our present state we can only bear so much.
II. ON THE MIND. “I was astonished at the vision . Arid there was none who understood it.”
1. Fulfilled prophecy is an open book.
2. Unfulfilled, a book only partly open. There should, then, be:
(1) Devout inquiry.
(2) The glad acquisition of some knowledge. But:
(3) No dogmatism.
Even a prophet, who had with his own eyes seen the glory, had to grope along the path of daily duty, with only the common dim and partial light.
III. ON THE LIFE. “I rose up, and did the king‘s business.“ These grand disclosures of things heavenly, of things future, of things Divine, to his soul; the high enjoyments of religion; only disposed him to be more faithful in meeting present obligations. There is no proper separation between deepest spirituality and the faithful plodding on the path of duty, which so much becomes us. “He who has been favoured with the clearest views of Divine things will be none the less prepared to discharge with faithfulness the duties of this life. He who is permitted and enabled to look into the future will be none the less likely to be diligent, faithful, laborious in meeting the responsibilities of the present moment. If a man could see all that there is in heaven, it would only serve to inspire him with a deeper conviction of his obligations in every relation. If he could see all that there is to come in the vast eternity before him, it would only inspire him with a profounder sense of the consequences which may follow from the discharge of the present duty.”R.
HOMILIES BY J.D. DAVIES
Dan 8:1-12
The temporary triumph of violence.
The good use of God’s revelation leads to the impartation of further and clearer revelation. “To those who have, it shall be given.” The former vision had well exercised Daniel’s mind; now a more minute vision is vouchsafed. In the improvement of character is piety’s reward.
I. GOD‘S GOOD GIFTS ARE DESPISED BY THE CARNAL AMBITION OF MEN. Lands, cities, palaces, extensive provinces, all fail to satisfy the man in whose breast vulgar ambition dwells. The possessor of the great kingdom of Persia did not conduct himself as a man, but as a silly ram. He was supreme master of these things; but since he did not extract advantage or enjoyment from them, he could not be said to possess them. His one thought was how to acquire more. Instead of cherishing a grateful disposition that God had given him so much, and afforded him such fine opportunities for useful service, his dominant passion was to dispossess others of their dominion. Nor did the fact afflict his soul, that in the career of violence, much innocent blood would be shed, men would be diverted from occupations of husbandry, and misery would be widely sown. The palace in which vain Ambition hatches her plots is no better than a pest-house. And the monarch who is prodigal with human blood is no other than a murderer. Like Satan, the destroyer, “he also goeth about seeking whom he may devour.”
II. MILITARY CONQUESTS SOW DEEPLY THE SEEDS OF DEADLY REVENGE. The arbiter of war settles nothing. The victor to-day is the vanquished to-morrow. The memories of the conquered people hold, with a deathless tenacity, purposes of revenge; and if the conqueror himself does not live to see his military fortune reversed, his successors feel the blow with accumulated fury. The ram, with his two unequal horns, pushed westward, northward, and southward, and for a moment was accounted great. But ere tong the goat with one strong horn assailed him with uncontrollable rage, smote him to the ground, and trod him underfoot. The arm of muscular strength soon decays. If a monarch has nothing better to depend upon than an arm of flesh, his glory will soon fade. It is surprising how that, generation after generation, monarchs still rely upon human battalions rather than on the living God. So ingrained in their imperial nature is ambitions pride, that they need to be bruised and pulverized in a mortar before the pride can be extracted.
III. THE MILITARY POWER OF A KINGDOM IS EASILY BROKEN. Very significantly is it said respecting this he-goat, that “when he was strong, the great horn was broken.” Alexander, surnamed by flatterers “the Great,” was to the kingdom of Macedon merely a horna weapon of offence. Can there be a more humiliating statement? If God has given to the inferior animals natural horns, they are intended to serve as defensive weapons. If the animal has any native sagacity, it will reserve its horns for fitting occasions of danger; for if it should rush into needless hostilities, its horns may be broken, and in the hour of peril the animal will become a helpless prey. How often does God snap the horn of human power in the hour of boastful triumph! Herod was drinking the sweet potion of profane flattery, when an angel smote him, and he was eaten up of worms. Nebuchadnezzar was feasting on the pride of his great success, when his reason forsook him, and he was degraded to a place among the cattle. Alexander sat down to weep, because there seemed no further scope for his ambition; but God’s shaft of disease pierced him, and left him a corpse.
IV. TRANSIENT SUCCESS MAKES MONARCHS INSOLENT AND PROFANE. If God takes away, he also gives. Where the one strong horn had been broken off, four other horns came up instead. The vital energy which could produce this is the direct gift of God. Whoever is meant by this “little horn,” he ought to have learnt, as the very first lesson of his life, that he had been raised up by God to replace one who had been removed by death, But instead of learning lessons of humility and pious trust from the patent scenes of human mortality, men, for the most part, become more presumptuous and profane. No outward events permanently impress the soul. Nothing but the mysterious grace of God can soften and purify man’s heart. This “little horn” ventures to assail the very stars of heaven. As high as the stars are above the earthas bright and as usefulso are God’s saints compared with earthly and sensual men. Against these this proud ruler arrays his hostile forcesyea against the Prince of heaven. He corrupts the priesthood, defiles God’s sanctuary, interrupts the daily sacrifice. This is a sin of sinsa crime of blackest dye. Herein we see what is the natural effect of military conquest upon the victor himself. It hardens the feelings, stupefies the conscience, makes the man a demon, and hurries him along to the brink of self-destruction.
V. PRESENT TRIUMPHS OVER THE RIGHTEOUS ARE DIVINELY PERMITTED, IN‘ ORDER TO SECURE HIGHER GOOD. Although the leaders among the Jews were vastly superior to the invading hordes of Antiochussuperior in virtue and moralitynevertheless they were far from perfect. A strange intermingling of good and evilof light and darknessappeared in their nature. So great was God’s regard for his chosen peep]e, that he made adversity to serve as moral medicine. Military disaster may serve as moral triumph. The armies of proud monarchs God used as his instruments of chastisement. The wicked are his handhis sword. The victorious army usually boasts that, by their own might, they have conquered. They can see no other result or end than their own fame. But God sees other and remoter results. In this case it was not simply because Syria’s army was mightier than the Jewish force, that the former triumphed, and made the daily sacrifice to cease. The real cause was that transgression was found in Israel; and if God’s remedy was severe, it was not more severe than needful. Israel was smitten before the Canaanites, because a spirit el mercenary selfishness was found in Achan. The cause of righteousness may be arrested, impeded, dishonoured, if some flagrant sin be found in its leaders. The kingdom of righteousness can only be advanced by righteous methods. It is true that God bad promised to shield his people Israel from their foes, but there was a condition, tacit or expressed, viz. that they should honour his commands. An army is defeated; the temple desecrated; access to God interrupted; because transgression was found in Israel.D.
Dan 8:13-27
The place of angelic ministration.
Angels appear upon Daniel’s visionary scene, and indicate the manifold services they discharge for men. In all probability they have individual and special qualifications for different kinds of service. The utmost variety of gift is consistent with wisdom, happiness, and purity.
I. OBSERVE THEIR HOLY CHARACTER. They are denominated “saints,” i.e. “holy ones.” Our Lord distinctly styles them by this epithet, “the holy angels.” They are capable of sin; have been exposed to temptation; and yet have preserved their original purity. This is their high distinction, their crown of excellence. So far they are models for our imitation.
II. THEIR PREVAILING DISPOSITION. They are not absorbed in thinking ant planning about themselves. The very reverse. Their chief concern is the honour and majesty of Godabout the well-being of man. They are represented as inquiring of each other respecting the cessation of symbolic sacrifice, the desolations of God’s temple, and the unhappy prospects of mankind. Into the great problems of atonement and redemption “the angels desire to look.” So absorbed are their minds in these momentous themes, that all time appears to them but as a season of atonement. “Days” are described as “evening-morning.“ They are the subjects of hope, even as are men; and they encourage the faith of the godly by announcing the brevity of the disaster. It stirs their joy to anticipate the termination of the transient eclipse, and to see beforehand the brightness of Messiah’s reign.
III. THEIR SUBMISSION TO THE GOD–MAN. The Son of God is Lord of angels, as well as Lord of saints. Without doubt this was a pre-incarnate visit of Christ to our earth. Daniel was staggered by the vision, and stood in an attitude of reverent inquiry. He was knocking at the gate of truth, and lo! Incarnate Truth himself stood before him. To his rapt vision there was “the appearance of a man.” His organ of hearing caught the sounds of a human voice. Yet this voice was not addressed directly to Daniel Gabriel was summoned to intervene as mediator and instructor. Immediately Gabriel undertakes the office, and proceeds to instruct the trembling prophet. The obedience of angels is prompt, hearty, and complete.
IV. THE SUPERIORITY IN KNOWLEDGE OF ANGELS TO MEN. They are said in the Book of Psalms to “excel in strength.” We know that they excel in purity; here we learn that they excel also in wisdom and knowledge. Without doubt, they have clearer and larger vision of the kingdom of God, as it extends through the entire universe. As man possesses, through God’s goodness, a gift of memory; so it is possible theft the unfallen angels are endowed with a measure of foreknowledge. In this case Gabriel certainly knew the precise import of the vision, end knew the order of events which were about to occur in the Eastern empires. Such prescience may be an assistance to their loyal service; it would be mainly a hindrance in the discharge of human duty. But the case of Daniel was exceptional. So much of humility and patient trust had he that he would not run counter to the revealed will of God. This was a manifest reward of his piety, and was a banquet of peace for his soul. A large accession was made to his knowledge through the friendly interest of Gabriel.
V. THEIR DESIRE THAT MEN, LIKE ANGELS, SHOULD DO ALL THE WILL OF GOD. Having certified to the veracity of the vision and to the certainty of approaching events, Gabriel enjoins Daniel to fulfil his part, viz. to seal up the vision. For the present it must be concealed from the common eye, and be carefully preserved for the future confirmation of human faith. To many men there would be a subtle temptation to publish abroad what they knew touching the march of events. This would serve to swell their self-importance. But Daniel was a wiser man. Fully to obey his God was his first principle in creed and life. To disclose these things prematurely might have injured the existing prospects of the captive Hebrewsmight, in some measure, have turned the history of the world into another channel. To wait is at times as plain a duty as to act Patiently to endure is one of the most heroic virtues the world has seen.D.
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
Dan 8:1. In the third year ofking Belshazzar This vision was about five hundred and fifty-three years before Christ. From chap. Dan 2:4 to this chapter, the prophesies are written in Chaldee. As they greatly concerned the Chaldeans, so they were published in that language. But the remaining prophesies are written in Hebrew, because they treat altogether of affairs subsequent to the time of the Chaldeans, and no ways relate to them, but principally to the church and people of God. See Bishop Newton’s Dissertation, vol. 2: p. 1, &c.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
2. The vision of the two world-kingdoms and their fall
Dan 8:1-27
1In the third year of1 the reign of king Belshazzar a vision appeared unto me, even unto me [I] Daniel, after that which appeared unto me at the first. 2And I saw in a vision (and it came to pass, when I saw, that I was at [in] Shushan in the palace [or, citadel], which is in the province of Elam); and I saw in a vision, and I was by [upon] the river of Ulai.
3Then [And] I lifted up mine eyes and saw, and, behold, there stood before the river a [single] ram which [and he] had two horns, and the two horns were high; but [the] one was higher than the other, and the higher came up last. 4I saw the ram pushing2 westward [sea-ward], and northward, and southward; so that [and] no beasts might [could] stand before him, neither was there any that could. deliver out of his hand; but [and] he did according to his will, and became great.3
5And as I was considering [then], behold, a he-goat4 came from the west,5 on the face of the whole earth, and touched not the ground [earth]: and the goat had a notable [sightly] horn between his eyes. 6And he came to the ram that had [master of the] two horns, which I had seen standing before the river, and ran unto him in the fury of his power. 7And I saw him come close unto6 the ram, and he was moved with choler7 against [towards] him, and smote the ram, and brake his two horns; and there was no power in the ram to stand before him, but he cast him down to the ground [earth], and stamped upon [trampled] him: and there was none that could deliver8 the ram out of his hand.
8Therefore [And] the he-goat4 waxed [became] very9 great:3 and when [as] he was strong, the great horn was broken; and for it came up four notable 9[sightly] ones,10 toward the four winds of heaven [the heavens]. And out of [the] one of them came forth a [single] little11 horn which waxed [and it became exceeding great,3 toward the south, and toward the east and toward the pleasant land.12 10And it waxed [became] great,3 even to the host of heaven [the heavens]; and it cast down13 some of the host and of the stars to the ground [earth], and 11stamped upon [trampled] them. Yea [And] he magnified himself3 even to the prince of the host, and by [from] him the daily [continual] sacrifice was taken 12away,14 and the place of his sanctuary was cast down. And a host was [would be] given him against the daily [continual] sacrifice by reason of [in] transgression, and it [would] cast down the truth to the ground [earth]; and it practised [did], and prospered.
13Then [And] I [quite] heard one saint [holy one] speaking, and another saint [one holy one] said unto that certain saint which spake [to so-and-so the one speaking], How long shall be the vision concerning [of] the daily [continual] sacrifice, and the transgression of desolation [desolating or astounding transgression], to give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot? 14And he said unto me, Unto two thousand and three hundred days [evening-mornings];15 then [and] shall the sanctuary be cleansed [sanctified].
15And it came to pass, when I, even I Daniel, had seen the vision, and sought for the meaning [understanding], then, behold, there stood before me as the appearance of a man [person]. 16And I heard a mans voice between the banks of Ulai, which [and he] called, and said, Gabriel, make this man to understand the 17vision [appearance]. So [And] he came near where I stood;16 and when he came, I was afraid, and fell [quite] upon my face: but [and] he said unto me, Understand, O son of man; for [that] at [to] the time of the end shall be the 18vision. Now [And], as he was speaking with me, I was in a deep sleep [stunned] on my face toward the ground [earth]: but [and] he touched me, and set me [made me stand] upright.17 19And he said, Behold, I will make thee know what shall be in the last end of the indignation: for at the time appointed the end shall be [it is to the time of the end].
20The ram which thou sawest18 having [master of the] two horns are the kings of Media and Persia. 21And the rough goat19 is the king of Grcia [Javan]; and the great horn that is between his eyes [, that] is the first king. 22Now that being broken, whereas [And the broken one, and] four stood up for it, four kingdoms 23shall stand up out of the nation, but [and] not in his power. And in the latter time of their kingdom, when [as] the transgressors are come to the full [have completed], a king of fierce countenance [strong (bold) of face], and understanding dark sentences [stratagems], shall stand up. 24And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power: and he shall destroy [or, corrupt] wonderfully, and shall prosper, and practise [do], and shall destroy [or, corrupt] the 25mighty [ones] and the holy people [people of the holy ones]. And through [upon] his policy also [and] he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand; and he shall magnify himself3 in his heart, and by peace [in security] shall destroy [or, corrupt] many: he shall also [and he will] stand up against the Prince of 26princes; but [and] he shall be broken without20 hand. And the vision [appearance] of the evening and the morning20 which was told is true [, it is truth]: wherefore [and thou] shut thou up the vision; for it shall be for many days.
27And I Daniel fainted,21 and was sick certain days: afterward [and] I rose up, and did the kings business [work]; and I was astonished at the vision [appearance], but [and] none understood it.
EXEGETICAL REMARKS
Dan 8:1-2. Time and place of the vision. In the third year of the reign of king Belshazzar; hence, shortly before the end of this king, who reigned but little more than two years (cf. Introd., 8, note 3), and therefore not long after the incident recorded in chap. 5, which revealed the Medo-Persian kingdom already rising with a threatening light above the political horizon of the Chaldan empire, as the heiress of Babylonia. Nebuchadnezzars vision of the image and that of the four beasts and the Son of man (seen perhaps two years before the present date), as well as the vision of the Medo-Persian ram and the Grcian goat, described in the following verses, had already prepared Daniel, before he interpreted the mysterious writing on the wall of Belshazzars banquethall, to see Medo-Persia standing on the arena of history as the leading world-power instead of Babylonia in the not distant future The extent, however, to which recent political events, such as successes achieved by the Medes, or, what is more probable, the rise of the youthful Persian prince Cyrus and his victory over Astyages (B. C. 559, and therefore two years after the death of Nebuchadnezzar in 561, and shortly after the overthrow of his successor Belshazzar-Evilmerodach), may have been influential in inciting the prophet to the politico-religious meditations from which originated the vision of this chapter, cannot be positively decided, in view of the silence of the book with regard to such externally conditioning circumstances. The political situation must certainly not be apprehended as if the fall of the Babylonian empire were immediately impending, and the approach of the Medes under Darius were looked for shortly. Against this view, which is based on the familiar but incorrect interpretation of Dan 5:29 et seq., and which is still advocated by Hitzig, Ewald, etc., see supra, on that passage.22A vision appeared unto me Daniel, after that which appeared unto me at the first; i.e., after having seen, somewhat earlier, an important prophetic vision, another of a similar character appeared to me. This new vision, however, is not called a dream or a dreamvision, like that in Dan 7:1, but simply a , vision, what has been seen; cf. Dan 8:15; Dan 8:26, and also (Dan 8:16; Dan 8:27; Dan 10:7; also Exo 3:3; Eze 43:3), which is often substituted for . It is evident that the prophet was awake and conscious during this vision, from the language of the verses at the beginning and end of the section (Dan 8:2; Dan 8:27), and also from a comparison with the vision in chap. 10, which is analogous in form (see especially Dan 8:7-10)., instead of . On this apparently relative use of the article, cf. Ewald, Lehrb., 335 a., properly, in the beginning, is here and in Dan 9:21 equivalent to formerly, before, and therefore:=, Isa 1:26; Gen 13:3-4 (in both passages the two terms are employed as synonyms). The expression refers back to chap. 7, and especially to 7:28.
Dan 8:2. And I saw in a vision; and it came to pass, when I saw, that I was at Shushan in the palace, indicates that he was merely visionally present at Shushan, or that in spirit he was transported to that Persian metropolis; but in the following words he describes its situation and locality in so realizing and exact a manner that his actual presence in or near that city becomes exceedingly probable. During his long official and semi-official service under Nebuchadnezzar he may have visited that region more than once (cf. supra, on 3:12 and 4:6). Like Josephus, a majority of the older translators, Luther, Grotius, etc., Bertholdt and Gesenius advocate the view that the words beginning with are in parenthesis; but this is contrary to the Heb. usage and to the expression of the author, and consequently the view adopted by nearly all the modern expositors, which finds only a presence of Daniel at Shushan indicated by this language, is preferable. This destroys all foundation for the charge of Bertholdt, that the writer is guilty of anachronism in this instance, since Shushan was no longer subject to the Babylonian empire in the reign of Belshazzar, i.e., Nabonidus. Even prior to the fall of the Chaldan world-power Daniel was able to speak of the palace (or castle) of Shushan (with regard to , Pers. bru, a castle, Sanscr. bura, Gr. , cf. Gesenius and Dietrich, s. v) as a centre of Persian power, and even, in a measure, as the heart of the Medo-Persian world-monarchy, because the city of Susa (Old-Pers. probably Shuza, now Shushsee Lassen, Zeitschr. fr Kunde des Morgenl., VI. 47), together with its well-fortified castle, was, from the earliest times, a principal feature in the province of Elymas (which is indicated by the terms applied to it by Herodotus, e.g., , – etc.; see Herod., V. 53, 54; VII. 151; cf. Strabo, XV. 52 et seq.; Pausan., IV. 31, 5), and because the prominent and all-controlling part which that city would take under the direction of a native Persian prince could readily be foreseen, even before cyrus should have solemnly declared it the capital of his empire, and before Darius Hystaspis should have enlarged and splendidly ornamented it as such (cf. Hvernick, on this passage).Which is in the province of Elam. Kranichfeld observes correctly that if this book had been written subsequent to the exile, Shushan would not have been located in Elam, but in Susiana (cf. Fller, p. 190); for Elam (Gr. Sept. ) is the old-Heb. designation of the countries situated east of Babylon and the lower Tigris, which were inhabited from the earliest times by Shemites (see Gen 10:22; Gen 14:19; cf. Isa 11:11; Isa 21:2; Isa 22:6; Jer 25:25, etc.), and it was not till the period of the Persian supremacy that the extended province of Elam was limited to the narrow strip between the Tigris and the Eulus, or between the Persian satrapies of Babylonia and Susiana, by which arrangement the river Eulus (see the notes immediately following) became the boundary between Elymas and Susiana, and the city of Susa was assigned to the latter province. Cf. Strabo, XV. 3, 12; XVI. 1, 17; Pliny, II, N., VI. 27: susianam ab Elymaide disterminat omnis Eulus. The expression , the province of Elam, does not by any means convey the idea of a Chaldan province of that name, whose capital was Susa, because the author conforms entirely to the ancient Heb. usage. Cf. Niebuhr, Gesch. Assurs und Babels, p. 198 et seq.; Vaihinger, in Herzogs Real-Encykl., Art. Elam.And I was by the river of Ulai, i.e., on the banks of the Eulus, which flowed on one side of the city of Susa, while the Choaspes (on which river the classics, as Herod., I. 188; V. 49, 52; Strab., XV. p. 728, etc., locate that town) probably bounded it on the other. Corresponding with this, the representation of a large city, lying between two rivers, on a bas-relief of Kuyunjik copied by Layard (Nineveh and Babylon, p. 452), was probably designed for Susa. The explorations of Loftus in the region of Shush in 1851 make it probable that the Eulus itself was merely a fork or branch of the ancient Choaspes or modern Kerkhah, and that the latter stream was also occasionally called Eulus (see Rdiger, Zeitschr. f. Kunde des Morgenl., 13:715 et seq.; Retschi, in Herzogs Real-Encykl., art. Susa). The peculiar name , stream, water-course, which is applied to the Ulai in this place and in Dan 8:3; Dan 8:6; Dan 8:16, appears likewise to indicate that it was not so much a single river as a stream which divided into two forks. The same idea was probably intended by the expression between the Ulai, Dan 8:16 (see on that passage).23
Dan 8:3-4. The first leading feature of the vision: the Persian ram. And behold there stood before the river a ram. Before it, i.e., probably, eastward from it, in case the branch of the river which flowed to the west of Susa is intended; for if Daniel did not stand in the castle of Shushan, he was at any rate close beside it, and therefore on the eastern bank of that branch of the stream. If from this position he saw the ram standing before the river, the latter must likewise have been on the eastern bank. [Daniel first sees one ram, standing by the river. The (one) does not here stand for the indefinite article, but is a numeral in contradistinction to the two horns which the one ram has (Keil). Rather it indicates a solitary ram, and not a member of a flock, as is usual with these gregarious animals. For every ram has of course two horns.] The vision symbolizes the Persian monarchy as a ram (and afterward the Grcian empire as a he goat), in harmony with that mode of representationwhich prevailed generally in the figurative language of O.T. prophecy and accorded with Oriental modes of conception in generalby which princes, national sovereigns, or military leaders were typified under similar figures; cf. Isa 14:9 (all the great goats of the earth), and as parallel with it, all the kings of the heathen, Jer 1:8; Eze 34:17; Zec 10:3. From extra-Biblical sources, cf. Zendav., part II., p. 273 et seq., in Kleuker (Ized Behram appears like a ram with clean feet and sharp-pointed horns); Hamasa, p. 482, ed. Shultens; also the Iliad, 13:491493; Cicero, de divinat., i. 22, 14; Plutarch, Sulla, c. 27.24 It is especially significant that Persia is represented as a male sheep, while the Macedonian-Greek empire is symbolized as a he-goat, in view of the contrast between the solid prosperity and even abundant wealth of the Persian monarchy, and the combative, rampant, and warlike nature of Macedon. With similar propriety the preceding vision (Dan 7:5 et seq.) employed the bear to represent the slow, clumsy, but enormous power of Medo-Persia, and the four-winged leopard to illustrate the fleetness and warlike spirit of the Macedonians. It is also possible that an indirect allusion to the ethical contrast between Medo-Persia, as a power which in a religious point of view approximated somewhat towards Shemitism and the Theocracy, and maintained friendly relations with them, and the Grcian empire, as being thoroughly heathen and fundamentally opposed to all monotheism, was implied in this representation; for the parallel descriptions in chapters 2 and 7 likewise describe the succeeding world-kingdoms as in every case more degraded and abominable, in a religious and ethical light, than their predecessors (see Eth.-fund. principles, etc., on chap. 2 No. 3, a and b). He-goats serve elsewhere also as symbols of a violent, savage, and obstinately hostile disposition, while sheep (and consequently rams also) are distinguished by being more governable, and by evincing a more peaceful and mild nature, and thus are better adapted to typify what is ethically good and attractive. See Mat 25:31-46, and cf. Lange on that passage, who observes against Meyer, and certainly with justice, that in this description of the last judgment, Christ does not represent the wicked under the symbol of goats because of the inferior value of that animal (Luk 15:29), but because of its incorrigible obstinacy and ungovernable temper (Vol. I. of the New-Test portion of this Bible work). Cf. also Piper, Christus der Weltrichter in the evangel. Kalender, 1853, p. 25.Which had two horns; and the horns were high. The ram was therefore not impotent and defenceless, since the tall horns which he bore are symbols of great power, being the natural weapons of rams, both for offence and defence; cf. on Dan 7:7; Dan 7:24.But one was higher than the other, and the higher came up last. The vision therefore represents the horns as still growing, and fixes the prophets attention on the fact that the horn which comes up last excels the other in its powerful growtha striking illustration of the well-known process of development by which the Persian nation became the head of the Medo-Persian world-empire after the time of Cyrus, as being the more powerful element in the confederacy, and thus able to compel the Median branch, though older, to assume the second place in power and dignity. Theodoret thinks that this passage refers to the expulsion of the dynasty of Cyrus by the later, but more powerful family of Darius Hystaspis; the ram, however, does not represent Persia only, but the combined Medo-Persia, as the angel expressly states in the interpretation Dan 8:20, and as the parallel visions in Dan 2:39; Dan 7:5, when properly conceived and understood, compel us to suppose (see on that passage).
Dan 8:4. I saw the ram pushing westward, and northward, and southward. The pushing can only be intended to signify the assertion and extension of its power in a warlike manner; cf. Dan 11:40; Psa 44:6; Deu 33:17; 1Ki 22:11. In this place the pushing westward denotes more particularly the victories of Medo-Persia over Babylonia and the Lydian kingdom of Asia Minor; that toward the north, the expeditions for the conquest of Scythia, led by Cyrus and Darius; and that towards the south, the conquest of Egypt and Libya by Cambyses. The ram does not push eastward, because the east already belonged to the Medo-Persian empire, and no farther extension in that direction was to be expected. Hitzig remarks, with incredible absurdity: The fourth quarter of the earth is here unnoticed. While the ram turns his head to the right or left, he may, without changing his position, push northward and southward, but not backwards; in that direction, moreover, he would assail Daniel himself, and afterward Susaas if there could have been any difficulty in the matter of changing the position of the ram, in case it became necessary to represent an extension of its power eastward, by the symbol of pushing in that direction!25So that no beasts might stand before him; literally, and all beaststhey stood not before him. The imperfect expresses here, as often, the sense of not being able to resist (cf. Gesen., Lehrgeb., p. 772 et seq.). The verb in this place is masculine (unlike Dan 8:22), because the writer has in his mind the kingdoms or monarchs symbolized by the . Cf. the similar enallage gen. in Job 15:6; Hos 14:1.But he did according to his will and became great. properly, and he made great, namely, his power, i.e., he became strong, mighty. Not and he pretended to be great, gave himself boastful airs(de Wette, van Ess, Ewald, etc.); for, as Dan 8:25 shows, never expresses the sense of boasting or conceited superciliousness when standing alone, as it does here and in Dan 8:8, but only when joined with the particularizing .26 With regard to Dan 8:10-11 cf. infra, on those passages.
Dan 8:5-7. The Grcian he-goat and its victory over the Persian ram. And as I was considering, behold, a he-goat, etc. Considering, , as in Dan 8:27. The he-goat with a single notable horn between the eyeshence in its general appearance resembling one of the unicorns which are prominent in the drawings on the monuments of Nineveh, Babylon, and Persepolissymbolizes the Macedonian-Hellenistic world-monarchy founded by Alexander the Great (whom the single great horn more directly represents, see Dan 8:21), and at the same time the kingdoms of the Diadochi which emanated from it, as Dan 8:8 indicates with all possible clearness by the growth of four new horns in the place of the great horn which was broken. This comprehensive animal symbol accordingly includes all that had been characterized separately in the two former visions of the world-monarchies, chapters 2 and 7, at-first by the figure of two different parts of the body of the colossus, and afterward by the symbol of two beasts appearing in succession. This departure from the former mode of representation involves no questionable features whatever, inasmuch as this chapter follows a different train of ideas in many other respects as well, and the advocates of the interpretation of the fourth beast in chap. 7 (and of the legs of clay and iron intermingled, in chap. 2), which differs from ours, must not be permitted to urge their view to the exclusion of our own, because they also are compelled to acknowledge that the present vision combines in one two features which are there found separately, so that the one Medo-Persian ram in this place corresponds to the two beasts in the former vision, which, in their judgment, represent Media and Persia (cf. supra).Came from the west on the face of the whole earth, and touched not the ground; therefore, with great swiftness, as if flying, or as if borne on the wings of the storm. Cf. the description of the leopard in Dan 7:6, and the statement respecting Alexander the Great, in 1Ma 1:3 ; also Isa 41:2 et seq.; Hos 13:7; Hab 1:6; Hab 1:8, and other descriptions relating to conquerors of earlier times.And the goat had a notable horn between his eyes. does not signify a horn of vision (Hofmann, Weiss und Erfllung, I. 292), but rather a notable horn, as the parallel in Dan 8:8; Dan 8:21 shows, and as the ancient versions already declare (Theod.: ; Vulg.: cornu insigne, etc.); cf. ,2Sa 23:21; also Targ., Est 2:2; Gen 12:11.
Dan 8:6. And he came to the ram that had two horns. The Arabs term Alexander the Great the two-horned one, because he was represented on coins, etc., as the son of Jupiter Amnion, wearing two horns on his head. The fact that on the contrary, the Medo-Persian empire which he conquered is represented as a double-horned ram, indicates with sufficient clearness that the symbolic visions of this chapter did not originate with a pseudo-Daniel, who prophesied subsequent to the event. Cf. Kranichfeld on this passage, where he justly rejects Hitzigs opinion that we have here merely an accidental analogy to the Arabian idea.And ran unto him in the fury of his power; properly, in the heat of his power, i.e., in the irresistible rage () of which he was capable by reason of his mighty power. Hvernick is not exactly correct when he reads full of a fierce desire for battle; nor are De Wette, Von Lengerke, etc., in their version, in his mighty rage.
Dan 8:7. And I saw him come close unto the ram. The manner in which Alexander the Great, at the head of the Macedonian forces, put an end to the Medo-Persian empire, corresponds in the main with this description of the assault by the goat upon the ram, which resulted in the breaking of the two horns of the latter (i.e., the power of Media and of Persia), but still not so exactly as to suggest a sketching ex eventu of that event. The figurative description is especially defective in not containing any tolerably clear indication of the fact that several vigorous blows by the ram, which were inflicted at different points (the first at Granicus, the next at Issus, and the final one in the neighborhood of Susa and the Eulus river), were required to break and destroy the Persian power. A Maccaban pseudo-Daniel would hardly have escaped the temptation to introduce more tangible allusions to these features.
Dan 8:8-12. The little horn which grew from the goat, and its violence against the Most High and His sanctuary. And the goat waxed very great. Here again does not signify to pretend to greatness, but to become great, to develop mightily.27 , unto excess, as in Gen 27:33; 1Ki 1:4; Isa 64:8.And when he was (or, had become) strong, the great horn was broken. , when the height of his becoming great was reached, when his power was at its climax. Think of Alexanders expeditions to Bactria, Sogdiana, and India, which were soon followed by his death. The breaking of the great horn, however, does not refer simply to Alexanders death, but also to the division of the dominion and disruption of the unity of the realm immediately consequent on the decease of that monarch.And for it came up four notable ones. is properly in apposition with , conspicuousness, four, or also an adverbial accusative, in conspicuousness, in a notable manner; cf. supra, on Dan 8:5. Each of the separate powers is therefore still important, although each receives but a fourth of the power and greatness of the original collective empire.Toward the four winds of heaven. This addition alludes to the centrifugal principle, tending to division and separation, which after Alexanders death (not after the battle of Ipsus, as Hitzig prefers) seized on the Macedonian-Hellenistic world-monarchy, in which the centralizing principle had hitherto prevailed. The number of the horns appears to be based on the number of the winds, and to be a standing symbolic expression which is found in other writers also (cf. Jer 49:36; Zec 2:10; Zec 6:5; Job 1:19). It is at any rate of symbolic significance, referring to the separation and parting of the empire toward all quarters of the world; and it is therefore not admissible to seek four particular kingdoms which should be denoted by the four horns growing towards the four quarters of the earth, as those of Cassander (Macedon), Lysimachus (Thrace and Asia Minor), Seleucus (Syria, Babylonia, and Persia), and Ptolemy (Egypt),28 Both the opponents and the advocates of the genuineness of this book, since Porphyry and Jerome, are agreed in this specializing interpretation of the four horns, by which the kingdoms of the four Diadochi, who have been mentioned, are obtained (cf. in addition Hvernick, Hitzig, Ewald, and Kamphausen, on the passage). But they do not consider (1) that not the battle of Ipsus, but the death of Alexander, the monarch who founded the empire, is given as the terminus a quo at which the growth of the four horns begins; (2) that in point of fact the number of the great empires of the Diadochi Cassander, Lysimachus, etc., was limited to four during a period even more brief than that during which the empire was a unit under Alexander; (3) that the enumeration of four such empires even immediately subsequent to the battle of Ipsus might be assailed as being inexact, inasmuch as Demetrius, the son of Antigonus whom those kings had conquered, stood upon the scene of action (as ruler of the sea, and lord of Phnicia, Cyprus, Athens, etc.), as well as the independent rulers of the Achmenid who governed Pontus, Armenia, and Cappadocia; (4) that the parallel visions in chap. 2 and 7 appear to indicate a division of the original empire into two kingdoms (the two legs of the colossus, Dan 2:33; Dan 2:40 et seq.), or into ten (cf. Bleeks interpretation of the ten horns, Dan 7:7) instead of four. Among modern expositors Kranichfeld advocates the correct view by laying the principal stress on the symbolic idea of a dispersion to the four winds, and contenting himself with observing in relation to the bearing of this prophecy upon the four empires of the Diadochi in question, that the prophetic idea is verified formally also, by events suggesting its fulfilment which were connected with the four kingdoms of the Diadochi in the Macedonian realm.
Dan 8:9. And out of one of them came forth a little horn. , literally, out of littleness, in a small way, an adverbial conception of similar formation as , in Dan 2:8; Dan 2:47 (see on those passages). On the masculine forms and cf. the similar constructions ad sensum in Dan 8:4 () and Dan 8:11 ().The horn from which the horn sprouting in a diminutive manner comes forth has its historical counterpart in the kingdom of the Seleucid; the little horn which sprouts or branches forth from itafter the manner of the prongs in the antlers of a deerfinds, like that in Dan 7:8, its most pregnant historical illustration in the most godless offspring of that dynasty, Antiochus Epiphanes. The little horn, however, was certainly not intended to represent Epiphanes only and exclusively, as the description shows that immediately follows, which relates to the predecessors of Epiphanes also, especially to Antiochus the Great, and perhaps even suggests a reference to Seleucus Nicator and his expeditions to Persia and India in search of conquest.Which waxed exceeding great toward the south and toward the east. It is usual to apply this to the wars of Ant. Epiphanes against Egypt (1Ma 1:18 et seq.; cf. infra, Dan 11:22 et seq.), against the countries beyond the Euphrates, Armenia and Elymas (1Ma 1:31; 1Ma 1:37; 1Ma 6:1 et seq.; cf. Appian., Syr., c. 45, 66), and against the Jews under the leadership of the Asmonans. But Syria derived no exceeding greatness under that tyrant from these wars; the may be far more appropriately applied to the former extensions of the power of the Seleucid under Sel. Nicator and Antiochus the Great (whose conquests toward the west are not noticed, probably because of their transient character). Moreover in case the reference to the undertakings of Epiphanes that have been mentioned could be established, the prophecy would be so direct in its application, that it would be hardly possible to defend its origin during the captivity with Daniel.29 It is better, therefore, to be content with the more general, and, so to speak, collective or genealogical interpretation of the little horn, by which it signifies, more immediately, the antitheocratic or anti-Christian governing power in the empire of the Seleucid merely, the power of the transgressors, who are clearly distinguished in like manner in Dan 8:23 from Ant. Epiphanes as the most concentrated expression of the anti-theistic principle (see on that passage). Cf. also Kranichfeld, who, while assenting to this general idea of the little horn, seeks to explain the circumstance that the growth of this horn toward the west is not mentioned, by assuming that the Grcian horn as such is conceived as being in the west and as operating from thence, and that therefore the author would naturally describe it as asserting its power only in the regions which lay southward and eastward from Javan.And toward the pleasant land. , properly, the ornament; here equivalent to (Dan 11:16; Dan 11:41), i.e., the valued, precious land, the blessed land, the land of Israel; cf. Jer 3:19; Eze 20:6; Eze 20:15; Zec 7:14; Psa 106:24. Palestine is here noticed as a third land between the south and the east, as, in a different connection, in Isa 19:23 et seq., it is located between the once hostile Egypt and Assyria,30
Dan 8:10. And it waxed great, even to the host of heaven. The becoming great is here no longer to be taken in the strict and proper objective sense, but is subjective, an impious presumption, a conceited pride whose greatness reached to the host of heaven; cf. Dan 8:25. The host of heaven, however, is doubtless a figurative expression, referring in strong eulogistic phrase to Israel, the community of saints, who contsitute the Lords host on earth, even as the glittering stars form His host in the sky; cf. Gen 15:5; Gen 22:17; Num 24:17; also Exo 7:4; Exo 12:41; and further, the name Jehovah Sabaoth, which probably designates God in a two-fold sense, namely, as the Lord of hosts, with reference to the starry host, and also to people of Israel, the host of His earthly servants and elect ones. The figurative designation of Israel as the host of heaven was probably caused by the designed assonance between and , the latter of which had just been employed to characterize the land of Israel.31And it cast down (some) of the host and of the stars to the ground. The copula before is explicative (=namely), and serves to introduce an explanatory clause, intended to sustain the force of the figure presented in the preceding sentence while applying the term which is not metaphorical in itselfto the host of Israel, and thus to strengthen the conception of the impious character of the attempt.And stamped upon them, namely, the members of the people of God; cf. Dan 8:13 and Dan 7:21; Dan 7:25. The manner in which this part of the prophetic vision was fulfilled under Ant. Epiphanes is recorded in 1Ma 1:24; 1Ma 1:30; 1Ma 1:37; 1Ma 2:38. Cf. the reference expressly to this prophecy in 2Ma 9:10.
Dan 8:11. Yea, he magnified himself even to the prince of the host. The masculine is used because the foe who is typified by the horn is intended; cf. 11:36.The prince of the host is of course not identical with him who is mentioned in Jos 5:14 (who is probably identical with Michael, Dan 10:13), but the Most High God Himself, to whom Dan 8:25 refers as the Prince of princes. Cf. Dan 7:8; Dan 7:20; Dan 7:25; Dan 11:36.And by him the daily sacrifice was taken away. The enemy of Gods people, who is symbolized by the horn, must be regarded as the agent of the two passive verbs and (for which Hitzig, following the Keri and the versions, unnecessarily desires to substitute the actives and , the daily (Gr. ), designates, as is shown by the mention of the place of his sanctuary immediately afterward, the daily service in the temple, and more particularly, probably the daily morning and evening sacrifices, the , Num 28:3; 1Ch 16:40; 2Ch 29:7. Cf. the rabbinical usage which expresses, this idea also by simply; cf. also infra, on Dan 8:14.The events in the history of the theocracy immediately prior to the Christian ra, which fulfilled this prophecy in a measure, are narrated in 1Ma 1:39; 1Ma 1:45 et seq.; 3:45.
Dan 8:12. And a host was given him against the daily sacrifice by reason of transgression; rather, and war is raised against the daily sacrifice, with outrage. The imperf. verbs and are not, indeed, prterites (Hitzig), but they are not used in a strictly future sense (Ewald, Lehrb., p. 829 et seq.). They denote, rather, the idea that the predicted course of conduct accords with the Divine decree, or that it is ordained or permitted by God, thus corresponding to Dan 7:14; Dan 7:17, or supra, Dan 8:4. This sense is most readily expressed in the English by the present tense. does not signify the host is given up, or devoted to ruin (De Wette, Von Lengerke, Hvernick, Kranichfeld, etc.), but, a war is carried on, a warlike expedition is begun, a campaign is undertaken (cf. Isa 40:2). The correct view was already entertained by Jerome, Luther, etc., and among moderns by Hitzig, Kamphausen, and Ewald, the latter of whom justly notices the contrast between here and the same word in Dan 8:10, where it stands in a different sense, and therefore translates, and the compulsion of a host is imposed on the daily. His idea is that compulsion is employed for the purpose of introducing idolatrous worship in place of the service of the true God, and particularly, compulsion to service in the host, so that host stands opposed to host, serfdom to the true service (of God), coercion to freedom.In imitation of Theodotion ( ), Bertholdt makes the very uncalled-for proposition of rejecting from the text, and then reading unquestionably indicates the method of making war upon the daily sacrifice; it stands sensu objectivo, to designate the outrageous heathen idolatry or sacrificial service, which superseded the worship belonging to the true faith. The same feature occurs in Dan 8:13, where is added, to strengthen the idea.32And it cast (casts) down the truth to the ground. The subject of (for which Hitzig, following the Septuagint, Theodot., and Syr., prefers to read ) is the , which is last mentioned in Dan 8:10, and which forms the principal feature of the entire description before us. The truth ( Theodot., ) to be cast down by this horn is the true religion, the objective truth of God, which is revealed in the law and the prophets (cf. Psa 19:10; Psa 30:10; also Dan 9:13). Dan 8:14 shows that its being cast down, like that of the daily sacrifice, shall continue but for a brief period.And it practised and prospered; rather, and it accomplishes this, and prospers, namely, because of the Divine permission. The words, and indeed the verse as a whole, serve to recapitulate and gather together the preceding statements.
Dan 8:13-14. A question concerning the duration of the oppression of the truth, and the answer to this question. Then I heard one saint speaking. This speaking angel (for here signifies an angel, cf. , Dan 4:10, and also Deu 33:2; Job 5:1; Job 15:5; Psa 89:6; Psa 89:8; Zec 14:1) enters into the vision here described without previous notice, because the prophet conceives of the whole scene as surrounded by angels, similar to Dan 7:10; cf. Dan 8:16, and analogous features (perhaps in imitation of this passage) in the night visions of Zechariah, e.g., Zec 1:9 et seq., 13 et seq.; 2:2, 5, 7; 3:1 et seq.; 4:1 et seq. The prophet does not state what the angel, who is introduced in this mysterious and dream-like manner, said at first, evidently because he does not know, i.e., because, although he has heard him speak, he has not understood his words. He saw, therefore, two angels, who were engaged in conversing with each other, and heard one of them say something which he failed to understand; the question, however, which the other addressed to the first speaker was so clearly apprehended by the prophet that he was able to repeat it in the latter half of this verse. Ewald puts it, correctly: Thus, at the first moment of silence after that speech, he suddenly hears one angel ask another, with whom he is conversing, etc. Hitzig, Kamphausen, etc., on the other hand, are arbitrary: The second angel addressed the speaker, by directing an inquiry in the interest of Daniel to him (Dan 8:13 b), by replying to which the other angel became for the first time speaker. According to this the greater part of Dan 8:13 would be a logical parenthesis, and the words and he said unto me at the beginning of Dan 8:14 would serve simply to resume the introductory words of Dan 8:13; the language of the writer, however, does not accord with this view. His evident aim is to repeat what he has overheard of a conversation between two angels; otherwise the most simple course for him would have been to address the inquiry concerning the duration of the tribulation to the angel in person, as in Dan 7:16, which is, in other respects, an analogous case.How long shall be the vision concerning the daily sacrifice. The vision, i.e., the subject of the vision, which is here more specially indicated by the two genitives that follow, viz.: and . The anxious question as to how long? (cf. Isa 6:11) is caused by the fearful and alarming character of the profanation and destruction, as seen in the vision of the prophet.And the transgression of desolation; rather, and the horrible transgression. , the partic. of , to be astonished, and then to be desolate or laid waste, certainly expresses the idea of the horrible or monstrous (Lat. horrendus), whether the intransitive sense of being astounded, or, in accord with Eze 36:3, the less general transitive sense of laying waste, be regarded as the radical meaning; cf. on Dan 9:27. In the latter case it would probably be necessary to translate the participle as a substantive in apposition; and (of) the transgressor, the destroyer;33 but in the former case also, where the adjective sense horrible (Ewald) or astounding (Kranichfeld) is chosen, the participle must be regarded as a kind of appositional supplement to , to which it is therefore added without the article (as in Eze 39:27). The expression , instead of which might have been expected (cf. 11:31), produces a solemn emphasis, which warrants the urgent question that is proposed.To give both the sanctuary (rather, the most sacred thing) and the host to be trodden under foot, i.e., to give both the holy sacrifice (the central point of worship) and the community of the saints of the Most High (cf. 7:18, 22, 27), the partakers of the theocratic covenant, to be trodden under foot (thus Ewald, correctly). [The grammatical construction of the latter clause of the verse seems to be that and and are all in dependence upon , like and preceding. How long shall be. (the) giving, and (the) sanctuary, and (the) host (to be) trampled. thus qualifies all the last three nouns, the latter two directly as an adj., and the former as an equivalent for the infin.] The expression adds nothing that is new to the former statements, but simply repeats the comprehensive estimate of the condition of the Jewish religion referred to, and the outrage committed against it, in the light of the idea that they are permitted by a superior Providence; and, in point of fact, the only object of the question is to recapitulate what has already been said. The asyndetic connection accords with the abrupt conciseness of the description, and the disjunctive before and , added to the lack of conjunctions, is suited to its poetic character (note also the omission of articles!. Consequently, everything that Hitzig regards as objectionable in this place, and that he urges against the traditional pointing for the purpose of removing to the preceding clause, arises naturally from the subject itself. Moreover, the explanation of by Hitzig, to permit the horrible transgression to go on, has no parallel, neither in Dan 8:12. nor in Isa 10:6, where, like the synonymous , to make into something, it is joined to a double accusative; and when Hitzig takes at first in the sense of to permit, and immediately afterward makes it signify to make into something, the artificial zeugma certainly does not diminish the imaginary difficulty which, in view of the disjunctive vav, he discovers in the vav that is not prefixed to , (Kranichfeld.)
Dan 8:14. And he said unto me. Thus all the MSS., which read , while the ancient translators, and among modern expositors, Bertholdt. Dereser, Hitzig, Ewald, etc., prefer . The latter form certainly seems to accord better with the contents of Dan 8:13, since it is supposed that the (cf. Rth 4:1) who says what follows, would address it to the other angel, who inquires of him; but it is conceivable, on both logical and psychological grounds, that the witness to the conversation of the angels would represent the information conveyed in the reply to the angels question as imparted to himself, because he was still more interested in that information than was the inquirer. Accordingly, he substitutes himself for the angel, because the interest felt by him in equal measure justifies him in identifying himself to some extent with the questioner.Unto two-thousand and three-hundred days (evening-mornings); then shall the sanctuary be cleansed (rather, justified). The justifying of the sanctuary is the re-consecration of the desecrated sanctuary and its services (which were permitted to be trodden under foot), which is accomplished by the renewal of the daily sacrifices. consequently denotes a being justified by that work, and, in its position at the head of the apodosis to the antecedent clause beginning with the connective , expresses to some extent the sense of the fut. exactum. The material justification or renewal of the perfection of the host, according to Dan 8:13, the second of the objects exposed to being trodden under foot, is conceived of as essentially coincident with that of the sanctuary, or as immediately involved in it, and for that reason is not expressly mentioned. The neglect to mention the host does not warrant the conclusion reached by Hitzig, under reference to 1Ma 5:2 et seq., that the author intended to point out that its state of being trodden under foot was to be more protracted, while that of the sanctuary was to cease at an earlier date.The duration of the period which is to precede the re-dedication of the sanctuary, is again indicated by a mystically indefinite and equivocal limitation of time, as in Dan 7:25. The 2,300 evening-mornings ( ) cannot be intended to signify so many days (as Bertholdt, Hvernick, v. Lengerke, etc., assume), for although the several days are, in Gen 1:5 et seq., divided into the two parts which represent them, and , they are not numbered accordingly; and the Gr. , which is often adduced in comparison, is the less adapted to serve as an analogy or ground of probability for the signification of evening-morning as synonymous with day, as can hardly be regarded as a compound word (on the analogy of ), but is, on the contrary, an asyndeton, arising from the poetic brevity of expression in this section (similar to in Dan 8:13), which, so far from being a current phrase or stereotyped formula, occurs only in this place as a designation of time. The limitation of the expression in this sense to this passage indicates, with an almost absolute certainty, that and do not signify the corresponding periods of the day, but rather the sacrifices required to be offered in them. The whole prophecy relates principally to the , to which the passage under consideration assigns an especially prominent position; but as, according to Exo 29:41 (cf. infra, Dan 9:21), this consists of a and a , the terms evening and morning in this place clearly denote the evening and morning sacrifices, or, if it be preferred, the times at which they were offered. Morning and evening are therefore to be counted separately;34 and thus the period indicated by the author covers 1,150 days instead of 2,300. This period is nearly equivalent to the three and a half years in Dan 7:25, while, on the other hand, the later numbers of 1,290 and 1,335 days (Dan 12:11 et seq.) exceed the medium of three and a half years but little. How this discrepancy in the limits assigned to the duration of the time of anti-Christian persecution and oppression is to be explained, and, in particular, how the number in this place is to be interpreted, is of course very uncertain, and must always remain undecided. In general, those expositors of the truth who always come nearest to the sense of the prophetic author, will regard the present number 1,150 as a designed narrowing, and the numbers 1,290 and 1,335 as a designed extension or overstepping of the limit of three and a half years, and seek to establish a conformity to law both in the narrowing and the extension of that period. If it is assumed that this book limits the year to 360 days (or to twelve months of thirty days each) besides five intercalated days, amounting in all to 365 days, it will be found (1) that the whole number of 1,277 days, which are necessary to cover the period of three and a half years, is decreased by 127 days, or something more than four months, by the number 1,150; (2) that the number 1,290 adds twelve days or about half a month to 1,277 days or three and a half years; and (3) that the number 1,335 adds fifty-eight days, or nearly two months, to the period of three and a half years. A certain conformity to law is evident from these figures, inasmuch as the two months by which the three and a half years are extended in the last number, are added to the shorter period of three years in the first (i.e., to 1,095 days); or, in other words, in the one case the prophet regards the period of three and a half years as extended by two months, in the other (in the present passage) as shortened by four months. These prophetic limitations of time correspond generally to the events of the primary historical fulfilment of this vision in the Maccaban ra of oppression and revolt, without being chronologically covered by them. It has already been shown, on Dan 7:25, that the interval between the abrogation of the daily sacrifices by Epiphanes (1Ma 1:54) and the reconsecration of the sanctuary by Judas Maccabus (ibid. 4:52) amounted to three years and ten days, or 1,105 days, thus covering forty-five days or one and a half months less than 1,150 days, as here stated. But if, on the other hand, the arrival in Juda of Appollonius, the commissioner of tribute (1Ma 1:29), is taken as the starting-point of the calculation (as Hitzig does), a result of three and a quarter years to the rededication of the temple is obtained, with tolerable exactness, which amounts at least to from one to one and a half months more than 1,150 days. A comparison of the larger periods of 1,290 and 1,335 days with the circumstances of the ra of the religious persecution by Antiochus, as recorded in the books of Maccabs, leads to still more unsatisfactory results (cf. infra, on Dan 12:11 et seq.). Hence, nothing more definite than a general or approximate correspondence between the predicted periods and their historical counterparts can be looked for; or, what amounts to the same thing, the prophetically-ideal value of the numbers in question must be recognized. Cf. the remarks in the Eth.-fund. principles, etc., No. 1, respecting the necessity that the predictions of any prophet which involve numbers should be only approximately fulfilled.All the expositors of this passage, whether upholding or denying the composition of Daniels prophecies during the captivity, are in the end obliged to assume a merely approximate correspondence of the number 1,150 to the periods of the Maccaban ra of persecution. Among the former class, the view we have presented comes nearest to that of Delitzsch (p. 280), who holds that, for reasons which our knowledge of history does not permit us to recognize, the prophets estimate of the period of something more than three years, from the 15th Chisleu 145 . Sel. to the 25th Chisleu 148, is somewhat inadequate; and also to that of Kranichfeld (p. 300 et seq.), who diverges from us on the mode of estimating the duration of the years in question, but is wholly agreed on the general principle. His opinion is that here, as well as elsewhere in the book, Daniel estimated the year at twelve months of thirty days each, intercalating a month of thirty days every third year. This results in exactly 1,290 days for 3 years, but leaves a discrepancy of forty days between 1,150 days and three years or 1,110 days. With regard to this difference he then observes: It is equally in harmony with the very general employment of the number forty in theocratic representations of times of severe trial and sifting (e.g., Gen 7:4; Gen 7:12; Gen 7:17; Num 14:33-34; Eze 4:6; Eze 29:11 et seq.; 1Ki 19:8; Mat 6:1 et seq.), and with the authors general usage which employs numbers in an ideal sense (cf. on 4:13; 7:25), as well as with the context more especially, that precisely this number should be found in combination with the final half-time. Consequently the amount 1,110 + 40 results as substantially identical with the more direct measurement of the three and a half times in Dan 12:11; and this discrepancy within the book itself becomes no more strange than that for instance, which represents the same kingdom at one time as divided into two parts, at another as falling into ten, and again (see supra, on Dan 8:8) as separating into four, in all of which descriptions the same fundamental idea prevails, although presented under different forms. We cannot adopt this estimate of the 1,150 days, by which they are made to consist of 1,110 + 40 days, because it seems too artificial upon the whole, and because the opinion on which it rests, that Daniel added an intercalary month of thirty days to every third year of 360 days, seems to be untenable, and to conflict with the 1, 260 days or forty-two months of the Apocalypse, which, beyond all question, are synonymous with the three and a half years of this book (cf. Auberlen, Daniel, etc., pp. 185, 286 et seq.).Among those who deny the genuineness of this book, Ewald approaches our method of reckoning, upon the whole, inasmuch as he supposes that the author constantly assigns 365 days to the year; and he consequently extends the 1,290 days over three and a half years + one-half month, and the 1,335 days over three and a half years + two months; but he departs from our view in arbitrarily reducing the number 2,300 to 2,230, so as to obtain only 1,115 days, or three years + one month, instead of 1,150 (p. 468). In opposition to such critical violence, Hilgenfeld, Kamphausen, etc., retain the reading 2,300 in the text, reckon the 1,150 days backwards from the dedication of the temple on the 25th Chisleu 148, and accept some unknown event as marking the beginning of the 1,150 days, since they exceed the period to the 15th Chisleu 145 by forty days. Hitzig thinks that only 1,105 days elapsed between the 15th Chisleu 145 and the 25th Chisleu 148, instead of 1,110, and therefore forty-five less than 2,300 evening-mornings, and that this difference of one and a half months belongs to the interval between the abrogation of the (1Ma 1:45) and the introduction of the (ibid. 8:54). A hasty glance at the description of these incidents in 1 Maccabs will be sufficient to show that this interval of exactly forty-five days between the interdict of the daily sacrifices and the erection of the statue of Zeus in the temple is wholly imaginary. Moreover, the critic contradicts himself, since he employs all his acuteness to prove, on Dan 7:25, that the Antiochian persecution began at least a quarter of a year, or more than three months, before the 15th Chisleu 145, while he finds it proper in this place to place the abrogation of the , or the beginning of the same period of oppression, only one and a half months earlier than this date.While the representatives of the opinion that the 2,300 evening-mornings are but half as many days, fail to establish an exact correspondence between the prophecy and its fulfilment, those expositors who regard the language as designating 2,300 days succeed no better. Bertholdt and Hvernick go three years beyond the time of Antiochus, to the defeat of Nicanor (1Ma 7:43; 1Ma 7:49), and assign to that period 2,271 days; the 29 days which, accordingly, are still lacking, are placed by Bertholdt at the close of the period, as an interval between that victory and the consequent celebration of the triumph, while Hvernick would prefer to assign them to the beginning, prior to the 15th Chisleu 145 (in opposition to both, see Hitzig, p. 136). On the other hand, Dereser. Von Lengerke, Wieseler (Die 70 Jahrwochen, etc., p. 110 et seq.), and Von Hofmann (Weissagung und Erfllung, I., 295 et seq.) go back to the year 142 . Sel. in reckoning the entire period of about six yearsDereser and Hofmann calculating from the 25th Chisleu 148 (the day of the dedication of the temple), and Von Lengerke and Wieseler from the death of Ant. Epiphanes in the month of Shebat 148. The former are thus carried back to the summer of the year 142 in fixing the date of the beginning of the apostasy of the Jews who were seduced by Antiochus, Von Lengerke to Sivan, or the third month, and Wieseler only to the feast of tabernacles in the same year, 142. Wieseler himself afterwards recognized the untenable character of this method of reckoning, and therefore acknowledged his conversion to the exegetically more correct view entertained by a majority of moderns, which estimates only 1,150 days, in his subsequent essay in the Gtt. Gelehrten-Anzeigen, 1846.35 [The author, it will be perceived, ignores that class of interpreters, quite common in this country and Great Britain, but comparatively rare in Germany, who understand by the days in question so many years, and generally apply the prophecy to the continuance of the papal supremacy. There is, however, a great discrepancy among these interpreters as to the point of time from which to date the period spoken of as well as some diversity as to its length, whether 2,300 years or only 1,150 years, although the majority prefer the latter. It would be a tedious, and, in our opinion, a bootless task, to follow them into all the details of their historical investigations, computations, and comparisons. Others, adopting the same substitution of years for days, apply the prophecy to the rise and sway of Mohammedanism, and make out the requisite dates as best they can. It is an adequate answer to all these interpretations to say that such a meaning of the word day has no sufficientif anywarrant in Scripture use, and certainly is not hinted at in this entire passage. A calm but fundamental refutation of the theory in question is given by Tregelles, Remarks on Daniel (Lond., 1864, 5th ed.), p. 110 et seq. It is also abundantly met by Stuart in his Commentary on the Apocalypse, II. 459 seq. Elliott, the strongest advocate of this theory, admits (Hor Apocalyptic, II. 965) that it was unknown till the close of the fourteenth century, when it was first broached by Walter Brute. It came into vogue with the Reformation, and owes its prevalence, not to any sound exegetical support, but to the polemical spirit of the times, which has seized upon it as a popular weapon against papacy.]
Dan 8:15-19. Preparatory to the interpretation of the vision of the ram and the he-goat. And when I sought for the meaning, namely, of the entire vision that was seen. The seeking was purely subjective, and not expressed in the form of a question addressed to the angel (Von Leng.), nor in a silent prayer to God (Hvernick).Behold, there stood before me (one), as the appearance of a man, i.e., appearing like a man. The expression behold, there stood, etc., indicates the startling and extraordinary character of the apparition, which argued something terrible and superhuman (cf. Job 4:16); the then follows to denote the encouraging effect produced on the seer by the manlike appearance of the form. The term is employed instead of or , doubtless in allusion to the name of the angel, which is given below, in Dan 8:16; see on that passage, and cf. Dan 9:21, where the same angel is designated as the man Gabriel, but where his super-human nature is also very clearly implied (in his flying).
Dan 8:16. And I heard a mans voice between (the) Ulai, i.e., between the two branches of the Eulus; cf. supra, on Dan 8:2. does not stand for , as if the voice only, and not also the listener, were stationed between the Ulai; nor does signify between the banks of the Ulai (against Von Lengerke, Hitzig, etc.).Gabriel, make this man to understand the vision. , i.e., man of God, or also man-god (according to Ewald, a God who kindly condescends to man), is the name of one of the principal angels or angel-princes (cf. Luk 1:19), one of the or (Dan 10:13 et seq.), whose number is fixed at seven in Rev 8:2 ( , ), equal to that of the amshaspands, who stand beside Ormuzd as a divine council, according to the ancient religious books of Parseeism. The Scriptural archangels, however, of whom another, Michael, is mentioned hereafter in this book, are not to be regarded as identical with the Amshaspentas of Parseeism; for (1) the number seven in the latter case is obtained only by adding Ormuzd himself to six others; (2) they are not represented as angels or servants of God, but as being themselves divine, and as governing determined portions of creation in that character, e.g., Bohumano (Bohman) governs the sky, Ardihesht the fire, Sapandomad the earth, etc; (3) the names of the amshaspands are as thoroughly Persian or Aryan in their character as those of the Scriptural archangel, so far as they occur in the Holy Bible (namely, Gabriel and Michael, and Raphael in the Apocrypha, Tob. 3:25; 12:12 et seq.) are specifically Shemitic, and bear, by virtue of the ending in each case, a thoroughly monotheistic character; (4) the attempts to establish the identity of individual amshaspands with individual archangels of the Bible must be regarded, without exception, as failures; e.g., the supposed recognition of Chordad (Haurvatat) in the Apocalyptic angel of the waters, Rev 16:5 (Hitzig; also Hilgenfeld, Das Judenthum im pers. Zeitalter, in the Zeitschr. wissenschaftl. Theologie, 1866, No. 4), the proposed identifying of Gabriel with Craosha and of Michael with Bohman (by Alex. Kohut, Ueber die jdische Angelologie und Dmonologie in ihrer Abhngigkeit vom Parsismus, in Abhandlungen der Deutsch. Morgenl. Gesellschaft, vol. IV. No. 3). Cf. Haneberg, in Reuschs Theolog. Literaturbl., 1837, No. 3, p. 72; also Dllinger, Heidenthum und Judenthum, p. 361; M. Haug. Essays on the sacred language, writings, and religion of the Parsees, Bombay; 1862.Ewald appears inclined to regard Gabriel not as one of the superior angels, but as occupying an intermediate or inferior rank, since he designates the mans voice which calls to him as that of a still higher angel. This assumption, however, is unnecessary; it is conceivable that an angel of equal rank may have given him this direction, or, if this should not be preferred, that God Himself, giving a human. sound to His voice that He might be heard by Daniel, addressed the angel.It must remain undecided whether the mans voice is to be considered as belonging to the former of the who were speaking together in Dan 8:13, while Gabriel is to be identified with the questioner in that place (as Hitzig supposes), since the author has not definitely indicated such an identity.
Dan 8:17. So he came near where I stood; literally, beside my standing (cf. Dan 8:18). Luther renders it, and he came hard by me.And when (or as) he came, I was afraid, and fell upon my face. Cf. Dan 10:9; Eze 1:28; Eze 43:3; Rev 1:17.Understand, O son of man (this address is probably modelled after Ezekiel); for at the time of the end shall be the vision; rather, for the vision is for the final time, i.e., it refers to the final period of earthly history; cf. Dan 8:19 b, 26. [But these verses do not warrant this interpretation. See below.] The words are not designed to comfort, but to direct attention to the impressive and alarming nature of the prophecy, in which, according to the following context, they are successful.
Dan 8:18. Now as he was speaking with me, I was in a deep sleep on my face toward the ground; rather, and while he was speaking with me, I fell stunned upon my face to the ground. Not until this repeated falling down in terror did the benumbing or Divine , take place, as the immediate presence of God for the purpose of imparting to the prophet a highly important revelation, was not realized until then. Cf. the case of Moses (Exo 33:20), Isaiah (Isa 6:5), Peter, John, and James, on the mount of transfiguration (Luk 9:32), Paul and his companions near Damascus (Act 9:4; Act 22:7; Act 26:12), etc.But he touched me, and set me upright. Cf. 10:10 et seq.; Neh 9:3, etc.
Dan 8:19. Behold. what shall be in the last end or the indignation, namely, of the Divine indignation upon the godless world (the , 1Ma 1:64; cf. Rom 2:5; Isa 10:5; Isa 10:25; Isa 26:20; Jer 1:5), which naturally will be manifested most strongly toward the close of human history, when the tares of wickedness shall flourish most luxuriantly (see Dan 8:23 and Mat 13:30; Mat 13:39; cf. Mat 24:9 et seq.). For this reason the last times shall constitute a period of great tribulation and woes (, Mat 24:7 et seq.).For at the time appointed the end shall be; rather, for it relates to the point of time of the end. The subject here, as in Dan 8:17 b, is the vision (), or rather its contents, which, according to this assurance from the angel, refers to the , the determined point of time of the end.36
Dan 8:20-26. The interpretation of the vision. On Dan 8:20, cf. supra, on Dan 8:3; concerning Dan 8:21, on Dan 8:5.The king of Grcia; properly, of Javan (). By this term the Hebrews designated all the Hellenic lands and peoples, because the Ionians (Homer, ) dwelt in the eastern portions of Hellas, and through their colonies in Asia Minor were the first to become acquainted with the Asiatics. The Egyptians, ancient Persians, and Indians appear likewise to have constantly denominated the whole body of Grcian nations as Ionians or Jaonians; schylus and Aristophanes, at least, introduce Persians as employing the term instead of . Cf. generally, Knobel, Vlkertafel, p. 78 et seq.
Dan 8:22. Now that being broken, whereas four stood up for it; rather, and that which was broken, and in whose stead four stood up. It should have read, properly, and concerning this, that it (the great horn) was broken, and that in its stead four stood up; but instead of this, stands abruptly at the beginning (cf. 7:17), and the ecbactic , and four stood up, etc., is subordinate to that term in its absolute position.Four kingdoms shall stand up out of the nation; , an archaism (Gen 30:38; 1Sa 6:12), that here seems to be renewed under the influence of the Chaldee element.But not in his power. The suffix in does not refer back to , but to in Dan 8:21 b. The power of the first great Grcian conqueror shall not descend to the kingdoms which spring from his empire; they shall not equal him, neither singly, nor all taken together.
Dan 8:23. And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, namely, of the measure of their wicked plans and actions; cf. the same elliptic usage of in Dan 9:24 Keri, and in addition Gen 15:16; 2Ma 6:14; Mat 23:32; 1Th 2:16. The who are here charged with filling the measure of their sins are not the Israelites who have forsaken Jehovah and His law (Dereser, Von Lengerke, Kranichfeld), but, without doubt, the enemies of Gods people, the heathen oppressors of the saints of the Most High; for the term alludes with sufficient clearness to in Dan 8:6; Dan 8:12-13. For the opinion that this does not probably refer to the servants and abettors of Antiochus Epiphanes, but rather to his predecessors, see supra, on Dan 8:9.37A king of fierce (rather, insolent) countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall stand up. , properly, of hard countenance (cf. Deu 28:50; Isa 19:4). The predicate probably refers chiefly to the blasphemous sayings of the tyrant, see Dan 7:3 et seq. The following predicate, , versed in riddles, denotes his art of cunning dissimulation, by which he is able to conceal his purposes from both friend and foe; cf. Dan 8:25; Dan 11:21; Dan 11:27.
Dan 8:24. And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power. The implied thought is, but by Divine permission; cf. Dan 8:12-13, and also Isa 10:5 et seq.; 1Sa 2:9, etc.It is incorrect to supply, with Dereser, Von Lengerke, etc., an antithesis to not by his own power, so that it will read but by his cunning. is a litotes, which, exactly similar to the expression without hand (Dan 2:34 and infra, Dan 8:25), alludes to the superhuman providence of God as compared to human power, which is never more than impotence.And he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper; , an adverb, as in Job 37:5. For what remains, cf. supra, Dan 8:12 b.And shall destroy the mighty (ones) and the holy people. The in is explicative; it is designed to denote more particularly the respects in which the king shall prosper. The mighty ones are the warlike enemies over whom he shall triumph, and to them are added, by way of contrast, the nation of saints (cf. 7:18, 22), as unwarlike opponents. In the opinion of Hitzig, Ewald, etc., the are the three pretenders to the crown whom Epiphanes was compelled to depose; but not one of these deserved to be called a mighty one, not even the usurper Heliodorus; see supra, on Dan 7:8; Dan 7:25.38
Dan 8:25. And through (rather, according to) his policy he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand. is probably not by reason of, but according to his cunning; cf. Psa 110:4; Est 9:26, etc. This expression, in an absolute position at the beginning, is connected with the principal sentence which follows by an emphatic ; cf. Gesenius, Thesaur., p. 396 a. is not transitive (Hitzig, et al.), as if the following were its accusative, but probably intransitive, despite the fem. ; cf. Isa 53:10.In (or with) his hand (cf. Isa 44:20), considered as the outward sphere of action, seems intended to form an antithesis to the following in his heart. Concerning and the signification of which results from it, cf. supra, on Dan 8:4.And by peace shall destroy many; rather, and unawares shall destroy many. does not exactly signify in the midst of profound peace (Job 15:21), but more indefinitely, with suddenness, by a malignant surprise. an illustration of the malice and dissimulation practised by this tyrant, which were already mentioned in Dan 8:23. The circumstance that it is recorded of Antiochus Epiphanes, in 1Ma 1:30, , proves nothing in favor of a vatic. ex eventu, beyond the fact that malignant and sudden surprises are necessarily practised by every warlike foe of cruel disposition. [In the (many) are comprehended the mighty (one) and the holy people (Dan 8:24).Keil.]He shall also stand up against the Prince of princes, etc. Cf. Dan 8:11, and with regard to the being broken without hand, cf. Dan 2:34; also Job 34:20 and Lam 4:6. It is not necessary to seek a definite reference to the death of Epiphanes by sickness or extraordinary accident in this passage, instead of permitting him to fall on the battle-field, or by the hand of a murderer (against Bertholdt, Von Lengerke, Hvernick, etc.).39
Dan 8:26. And the vision of the evening and the morning which was told, namely, in Dan 8:14. Since the observation in that place respecting the 2,300 evening-mornings was really a , and not a the words seem to refer back to the genitive , instead of to the Stat. constr. (thus Hitzig). Words and things told, however, form the subject of visions in other cases also (cf. Isa 2:1; Amo 1:1; Hab 2:1, etc.); and the remark concerning the 2,300 evening-mornings may consequently be termed a vision in this instance.Is true (rather truth), i.e., it is correct, deserves to be credited, inasmuch as 2,300 evening-mornings must elapse before the end of the period of affliction. That period is thus determined as an extended one, which shall not soon reach its close. On , cf. Dan 10:1; Dan 11:2; also 12:7; Jer 26:15; Jer 28:9; Rev 19:9; Rev 21:5; Rev 22:6.Wherefore shut thou up the vision; rather, and thou, conceal the vision, i.e., do not publish it, do not be anxious to spread a report concerning it. is not equivalent to to seal up (Theodotion, Hvernick, Von Lengerke); for sealing is added to the mere concealing in Dan 12:4, as a strengthening term.For it shall be for many days, i.e., it (the vision) shall retain its prophetic value for a long period, it does not relate to a near, but to a distant future; cf. Dan 12:4; Dan 12:9. As the direction to conceal the vision is here based on the consideration that a long period must elapse before it shall be fulfilled, so, on the contrary, the prophet is directed, in Rev 22:10, not to seal what has been revealed to him, because the time of its fulfilment is near. Notice the difference between the Old-Testament seer, who is far removed from the final future, and only sees it primarily in types (e.g., instead of beholding the antichrist he only sees his forerunner Epiphanes), and the New-Testament prophet, who beholds the events of the last times in the history of the world much nearer at hand, and is therefore not obliged to conceal the prophecies relating to them, especially since he addresses a communnity composed exclusively of (Isa 54:3; Joh 6:45; cf. 1Jn 2:20; 1Jn 2:27).
Dan 8:27. The effect of the vision upon the prophet. And I Daniel fainted, and was sick (certain) days. Cf. 7:28, and especially Dan 2:1, in relation to .Afterward I rose up, namely, from the sick-bed. This formal statement by the prophet cannot be regarded as extraordinary, since not only the vision as such (i.e., by reason of its startling character), but also the fasting which preceded it (cf. Dan 9:3; Dan 10:2 et seq.), comes under consideration as the cause of the complete exhaustion which followed.And did the kings business. Concerning the extent to which Daniel might have transacted official business for the king in the reign of Belshazzar, without being personally known to him, see on Dan 5:7.And was astonished at (rather, dumb concerning) the vision, but (and) none understood (rather, became aware of) it; usually rendered, none understood it, or, and to me there was no understanding, I did not understand it (thus Maurer, Hitzig, Kranichfeld, Kamphausen, etc., under comparison with Dan 12:8). Since, however, the obvious design is to state what Daniel did to conceal the vision, the signification of not noticing, not learning seems to be the only logical and suitable one for in this passage; cf. on this interpretation, Dan 8:5; Dan 8:17; Job 28:23; Isa 28:19, etc.
Ethico-fundamental Principles Related To The History Of Salvation, Apologetical Remarks, And Homiletical Suggestions
1. The principal difficulty to be met with in this section relates to the concrete number of 1150 days or 2300 evening-mornings, in Dan 8:14, and in its failure to agree with the three and a half years of the preceding vision (Dan 7:25). If simply the idea was to be expressed that the period of tribulation should expire in something less than three and a half years, why did the author not permit the angel to say, even before three and a half years shall have passed, etc.? Or why did he not select really a round number, as 1200 days (to denote 1277, which amount exactly to three and a half years)? Or why did he not pursue the course adopted by the New-Test. apocalyptist, who substituted forty-two months for forty-two and a half, and hence 1260 days for 1277 (see Rev 11:2; Rev 12:6; Rev 13:5)?This strange feature admits of a correct explanation, only when it is remembered that prophecies relating to time are necessarily and unavoidably of a symbolic-concrete character, and that for this reason, no exact correspondence, or mechanically precise agreement of the prophetic numbers with the extent of the periods in which they are realized, can be expected. Neither the seventy years of being forgotten and of ruin which Isaiah predicted for the Tyrians (Isaiah 25:1518), nor the seventy years of captivity in Babylon, which Jeremiah (Jer 25:11, et seq.; Jer 29:10 et seq.) foretold to the Israelites of his time, were fulfilled with literal exactness40 (cf. infra. on chap. 9); and as the two days () during which Israels state of death or the period of its affliction was to continue, according to Hos 6:2, have primarily an ideal-symbolic value only, so the three days and three nights, which were to be spent by the prophet in the belly of the great fish, according to Jon 2:1, were, in like manner, not an exact number, amounting to precisely seventy-two hours (cf. Kleinert on that passage)and yet tooth these prophetic numbers were designed to foretell the resurrection of the Saviour on the third day, i.e., after two whole nights and one entire day.41 The prophets are accustomed to employ concrete conceptions of time, and to clothe them in definite form. This form might arise from any incident or event, most of which can no longer be discovered; but their relation to the duration of the events which fulfil the prophecy must as certainly be a merely approximate agreement, and not mathematically exact, as the manner in which God secures the fulfilment of the prophecies uttered by holy men through the Spirit, is in nowise a matter entrusted to man, but belongs only to the God who brings the predictions to pass (cf. 2Pe 1:20 et seq.)42 The predictions of the prophets in the Church during the Middle Ages and in modern times (e.g., St. Hildegard, Joachim, the Parisian professor Nicholas Oresmius, who, in 1364, foretold the great papal schism, which actually broke out in 1378; Huss and Savonarola, who predicted the Reformation; the Lutheran Michael Stiefel of Jena ( 1567); the astrologer Nostradamus ( 1566); and finally J. A. Benzel and Jung-Stilling) might be substantially treated in the same manner, so far as they assume a numerically exact, or definitely chronological form.43 The partial non-agreement of their predictions with the points of time or periods of the future in which they were to be realized does not destroy their character as genuine prophets, or disprove that they were employed in a superior and heavenly calling; but the approximate agreement or partial coincidence of their vaticinations with the facts of fulfilment and their chronological relations, does not warrant a suspicion that they were forged subsequently to the beginning of their fulfilment, any more than the approximate agreement of either the 1150 days or the three and a half years, etc., in the prophecy before us, with the epochs of the Maccaban history will justify the pseudo-Daniel tendency-hypothesis.
2. While the slight difference between the prophetic number and the events connected with its realization, discussed above, belongs undoubtedly to the category of those slight discrepancies which, according to M. v. Niebuhr, must excite our awe, instead of begetting a doubt of the truth of the prophecy, or shaking our confidence in the chronology of ancient history (Geschichte Assurs und Babels, p. 90), the relation between the character of the history of nations and kingdoms as described in the vision under consideration, and the condition of Israel during the ra of oppression and revolt in the Maccaban age, which corresponds to it as a primary historical fulfilment, is such, that it unconditionally forbids the idea that the vision is a prophecy ex eventu, and was composed to favor a tendency. There is no complete and thorough correspondence between prophecy and fulfilment, that could favor the suspicion of its composition under such circumstances and for such a purpose; on the contrary, the discrepancies are so numerous, that to trace historical facts which shall correspond in every case to the particular features of the prophetic vision, involves the greatest uncertainty and difficulty. Bertholdt and v. Lengerke assume that the chapter was written shortly after the death of Antiochus Epiphanes; Hitzig, that it was composed shortly before that event; Bleek (Jahrb. fr deutsche Theologie, 1860, No. 1, p. 57), that it was framed at least about that time. According to this, the section was at any rate composed at a time when the Jews had already demonstrated their superiority in arms over the troops of the tyrant. At the same time, these bloody feats of arms, which formed the basis of all the hopes that animated the newly-awakened national consciousness of the Jews, are not mentioned with a single word. As in chap. 7 the heathen oppressor triumphs in battle over the holy people to the end of the three and a half times, so in this selection the host and sanctuary are represented as being trodden under foot until the close of the period mentioned in Dan 8:14. Even the restoration of the sanctuary (Dan 8:14), which might at least indirectly be interpreted as consequent on a warlike triumph of the Jews, is, in Dan 8:25, referred only to a theocratic judgment imposed directly by God, and not to a national victory. The latter, indeed, is directly excluded. The great deeds of the oppressor only are spoken of, and his overthrow is immediately connected with them. Every real foundation for the opinion that this section originated at that juncture which was marked by the triumphs over Apollonius and Seron, over Gorgias and Lysius, dearly bought as they were with the blood of the people, is thus taken away, since the situation described in the chapter, testifies only to defeat down to the time of restoring the temple, and denotes a disposition which looked for help only from a supernatural agency (Kranichfeld, p. 286 et seq.).Remarkable as is this total silence respecting the national revolt, which was so successfully introduced, when the author is regarded as a Maccaban pseudo-Daniel, it is no less difficult to understand why, if the vision was recorded soon after the death of Antiochus, the Messianic hopes which must have been connected with that death, should not be mentioned with a single word. The only tolerable explanation of this fact is that the death of the oppressor (his being broken without hand, Dan 8:25) was future to the writer, as much so as everything else. Even the restoration of the temple-service, which had been abolished, is clearly placed in the future by the description in Dan 8:14, and does not appear as an incident in the past experience of the prophet. The only comfort offered by him in the entire section has no relation to the sufferings of the present or the past, but to tribulations belonging to the far-distant future.
3. The only circumstance which seems seriously to favor the theory of a Maccaban composition is the express mention of Juvan in Dan 8:21, as the world-power from which the impious oppressor of Israel should come forth (preceded, however, by a number of anti-theistic kingdoms [5:22] and wicked sovereigns [5:23]). But this circumstance also loses its apparent character, as disproving the origin of the chapter during the captivity, and becomes decidedly more intelligible, as soon as we remember the frequent contact of the orientals with Hellenic civilization and culture, as well as with Grcian military art and bravery, which began even before the time of Nebuchadnezzar (see Introd. 7, Note 2). Let it also be remembered that the ancient prophecy by Balaam (Numbers 24), which threatened destruction to the Assyrians and Hebrews through ships from Chittim, i.e., through Greek invasions from the sea (cf. supra, on chap. 2), must have been known to Daniel, even if it had originated as late as the age of Shalmaneser and Sennacherib, and afterward been incorporated with the early history in the Pentateuch. There is no lack of natural indications arising from the events of current history, which might suggest to a seer of the period of the exile, that precisely the distant nation of the Greeks would become a threatening rival, and eventually, a victorious opponent of the Persian power and greatness, and which might also awaken in him a presentiment of the internally divided and disunited, and therefore transient character of the future empire of the Greeks. The definite character of the predictions respecting the development of that Javanic empire is certainly marvellous and inexplicable, unless referred to the Divine Spirit of prophecy; but it is scarcely more wonderful than the equally definite character of Balaams prophecy, which likewise related to the Greeks, or than the surprising clearness and confidence with which Amos foretold that the Israel of his day should go into captivity beyond Damascus (Dan 5:27), or Isaiah was able to predict that the successors of Hezekiah should be led into captivity at Babylon (Isa 39:6 et seq.; 2Ki 20:17 et seq.), or Jeremiah could describe to his contemporaries the overthrow of Babylon by the Medo-Persians! Cf. also Kranichfeld, p. 128 et seq.
4. The real and fundamental Messianic feature of this section, and, at the same time, the thought which is pre-eminently adapted to practical homiletical treatment, is that already noticed in the exegesis of Dan 8:19; Dan 8:23, according to which the moral degradation and the wickedness of the world-power in its hostility to God becomes more excessive with each stage through which that power passes in its development, until it reaches its climax, when God interferes to judge and deliverthus bringing it, in its character as an oppressive, pseudo-prophetic antichristianity, into the strongest contrast with the transparent light and holiness of the Messiah and the community of His saints, who are born of God. This thought is also presented by the Saviour in the parable which describes the tares as growing together with the good seed in the field, and as ripening for the harvest at the judgment (Mat 13:30 et seq.); it is the same Messianic truth and necessity to which he refers in the former half of his oratio eschatologica in thoroughly prophetic language (Mat 24:5 et seq.); it is the fundamental thought of all apocalyptic prophecy, of all prophecy relating to the future history of empires, as the analogous sections in 2 Thess. and the book of Revelation show with sufficient clearness. The goats triumph over the more harmless rams in the last times; the place of the weaker horns that arise against the Lord is supplied by others who succeed each other in constantly increasing strength. The great power of the enemy is reinforced by great cunning, which increases with the lapse of time; and his insolence is joined to craft which steadily develops, and to malignant dissimulation (cf. Dan 8:23-25), until, through the instigation of the great arch-enemy, who is ever the same, nation rises against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. To increase the need and oppression of the righteous, many false prophets arise and practice their deceitful arts, and because iniquity abounds, the love of many waxes cold (Mat 24:7 et seq., 11 et seq.).If all this, considered as the real fundamental idea of the visional representation, be duly regarded, the jejune character of this section, which at first sight seems to offer nothing that possesses practical value, or that is available for homiletical purposes, will speedily disappear; and as the danger of feeling that only unimportant features, such as the animal-symbols (Dan 8:3-7) or the doctrine of angels (Dan 8:13-18), are here presented, becomes less, the preacher will find the energetic warning and promise by the Saviour, But he that endureth to the end shall be saved, available as an encouraging and hortatory theme that covers the ground of the whole chapter. This forms the pregnant and solemn expression of the New Testament, which marks the consoling and elevating Messianic back-ground in which the discouraging and stormy scene of the chapter is laid, but which here appears but for a brief moment in the concluding words of Dan 8:19, like the cheering sun at evening against the border of the stormy cloud.
5. Special homiletical suggestions relating to separate passages:
On Dan 8:3 et seq., Melancthon: Aliquoties dictum est, ad quid prosit tenere prdictiones de serie monarchiarum et omnium temporum usque ad extremum judicium? Est Ecclesi hac doctrina et consolatione opus, ne inter tot afflictiones et scandala desperet. Est etiam admonitione opus, ut causas cogitemus afflictionum. H atroces comminationes exsuscitent nos, ut simus diligentiores in conservanda puritate doctrin et in vita, ne Deus sinat exoriri majores tenebras.The Tbing. Bib.: How uncertain is the glory and majesty of the kingdoms of earth! Even when they have attained the highest prosperity they must yet be humbled, fall, and pass away, like every other earthly good and honor. The kingdom of heaven alone is immutable, and forms the hope of every believer, Psa 145:13.
On Dan 8:10 et seq., the Tb. Bib.: Nothing is more dangerous than pride, which leads man even to war against God, His Church, and the true worship. This must inevitably be followed by heavy judgments from God.Starke: An earthly ruler will not permit rebellion against his authority to pass unpunished. How shall he escape, who revolts against the Prince over the host of God (Isa 10:13)?
On Dan 8:14, Cramer: The persecution and rage of the godless is a storm that sweeps over us; God fixes its limits, results, and measure.Starke: God has indeed revealed something in relation to the hope of Christs Church for better times on the earth, in order that no doubt may be entertained concerning the fact itself; but to seek to ascertain the particular time, would be fool-hardiness and useless trouble (Act 1:7).
On Dan 8:17 et seq., Jerome: Et Ezechiel et Daniel Authenticity Of The Booket Zacharias, quia spe inter angelos esse se cernunt, ne eleventur in superbiam et angelic vel natur vel dignitatis se esse credant, admonentur fragilitatis su, et filii hominum appellantur, ut homines se esse noverint.Geier: If the presence of a holy angel was so insupportable to Daniel, how terrible will be the experience of the wicked when they shall behold the Lord of angels and Judge of the whole world, Jesus Christ Himself (Rev 6:15 et seq.)!
On Dan 8:24, Osiander: God sometimes permits the plans of the wicked to succeed, in order that the saints may be tried.Starke: God requires no great preparation or mighty instruments to cast down a tyrant; He can adapt the most insignificant means to that end (Act 12:23).
Footnotes:
[1][To.
[2], butting, as rams are fond of doing.
[3], acted proudly.
[4]Literally, a leaper of the goats.
[5], a different term from that used in Dan 8:4, , the sea, i.e., Mediterranean, which here might have been misunderstood as being literally the place of origin, whereas the idea of direction only is intended.
[6]Literally, touching the side of.
[7]Literally, imbittered himself, i.e., was exasperated.
[8]Literally, no deliverer for.
[9]Literally, till exceedingly.
[10]Literally, a sight of four.
[11], diminution; the order too is emphatic, one horna petty one.
[12], the beauty of lands.
[13]Caused to fall.
[14]According to the text , one took away.
[15]The original is exceedingly laconic and obscure, , literally, a giving and the sanctuary and the host a treading.
[16]The original is very peculiar, Till an evening-morning, 2300.
[17]Literally, to the side of my standing.
[18]Literally, upon my standing.
[19]Literally, hairy leaper.
[20]Literally, with a cessation of.
[21], q.d., Was done up, was overcome.]
[22][If, however, Rawlinsons identification of Belshazzar with Nabonneds son and viceroy be correct, the Medo-Persian army was at this very time besieging Babylon, though with apparently little prospect of success; and the fall of the city must have followed shortly after this vision. Hence the first monarchy, the Chaldan, is here kept out of view, as if already a thing of the past.]
[23][But why such a locality? Because the prophets present vision begins with the Medo-Persian empire, and Shushan was to be its capital. And why on the rivers bank? Not because the Jews were wont to build prayer-houses in such places, Act 16:13; nor because Ezekiel had visions on the Chaboras, 1:1, 3; 3:15, 25 al. (Leng.); nor because of the solitude of the place (Maurer); but simply, as I understand it, because the castle () stood on the banks of the river. The mention of the river, however, would still be in a measure superfluous, were not this mention a preparation for what is said in Dan 8:16.Stuart.]
[24]Iliad, 1. c.:
,
Cf. the prophetic dream relating to the murder of a brother of Brutus by Tarquin Superbus, and to the vengeance inflicted by Brutus for that deed, as narrated by Tarquin in Cicero, de divin., l.c.
Visust in somnis pastor ad me adpellere
Pecus lanigerum exinda pulchritudine,
Duo consanguineos arietes inde eligi
Prclarioremque alterum immolare me;
Deinde ejus germanum cornibus connitier
In me arietare, toque ictu me ad casum dari.
In Plutarchs Sylla the following is related, and treated as an omen of the defeat of the younger Marius and the consul Norbanus, which occurred soon afterwards: (? read instead) , , Cf. additional extracts from the classics and from the oriental liter ature which bear on this point in Hvernick.
[25][He did push toward the eastnot because. the Medo-Persians themselves came from the east (Von Leng., Kran.): nor yet because the conquests of the Persians did not stretch toward the east (Hv.), for Cyrus and Darius subdued nations to the east of Persia, even as far as to the Indus, but because, for the unfolding of the Medo-Persian monarchy as a world-power, its conquests in the east were subordinate, and therefore are not mentioned. The pushing toward the three world-regions corresponds to the three ribs of the bear, Dan 7:5, and intimates that the Medo-Persian world-kingdom, in spite of the irresistibility of its arms, did not extend its power into all the regions of the world.Keil.]
[26][Yet the idea of insolence or arrogance is not absent from used thus absolutely, see Sam. 1:9; Zep 2:8. Flushed with success, we know from all quarters that the Persians assumed a haughty position; so Crsus (in Herod, 1:89), and so schylus (Pers. 795) .Stuart.]
[27][The necessity for this limitation of the meaning of here is not clear; it seems better to take it in the same sense of arrogance as the result of success which it bears in the remainder of the chapter.]
[28][Yet Daniel says explicitly that the four horns are four kingdoms (Dan 8:22), and the coincidence is too striking and minute to be accidental. There were indeed originally five of the Diadochi, but they so soon resolved themselves into four that this temporary pentarchy is disregarded.]
[29][The force of these arguments, especially the last, for extending the import of the little horn beyond Antiochus Epiphanes, it is very difficult for those who are wholly untinged with rationalistic sentiments to appreciate.]
[30]A later Rabbinical interpretation conceives the sense of gazelle, and refers this designation partly to its beauty, and partly to its peculiarity to extend its borders when inhabited, like the skin of a gazelle, but to shrink when uninhabited (Taanith, 69 a).
[31][The comparison of the saints to the host of heaven has its root in this, that God, the king of Israel, is called the God of hosts, and by the (hosts) are generally to be understood the stars or angels; but the tribes of Israel also, who were led by God out of Egypt, are called the hosts of Jehovah (Exo 7:4; Exo 12:41).Keil.]
[32][Keil thus reviews the various interpretations proposed of this difficult clause: We must altogether reject the interpretation of the Vulgate, Robur autem datum est contra juge sacriflcium propter peccata, which is reproduced in Luthers translation, There was given to him such strength against the daily sacrifice on account of sin; or Calvins, Et tempus datum est super jugi sacrificio in scelere, whereby, after Rashis example, is interpreted of the statio militaris, and thence the interpretation tempus or intervallum is derived. For means neither robur nor tempus, nor statio militaris, but only military service, and perhaps military forces. Add to this that both in Dan 8:10; Dan 8:13 means host. If we maintain this, with the majority of interpreters, only two explanations are admissible, according as we understand of the host of heaven, i.e., of Israel, or of some other host. The latter interpretation is apparently supported partly by the absence of the article in partly by the construction of the word as fem. (). Accordingly, Hitzig says that a Hebrew reader could not understand the words otherwise than as meaning, and a warlike expedition was made or conducted against the daily sacrifice with wickedness (i.e., the impure service of idols): while others translate, and a host placed against the daily sacrifice on account of sin (Syr., Grot., Harenb., J. D. Michaelis); or, a host is given against the daily sacrifice in wickedness (Wieseler): or, given against that which was continual with the service of idols, i.e., so that, in the place of the continual wickedness, the worship of idols is appointed (Hofmann); or, the power of an army is given to it (the horn) against the daily sacrifice through wickedness, i.e., by the evil higher dmons (Ebrard). But the latter interpretation is to be rejected on account of the arbitrary insertion of (to it); and against all the others it is to be remarked that there is no proof either from Dan 8:13, or from Eze 32:23, or 36:8, that means to lead out, to bring forward, to give contrary to or against. Keil concludes by translating: And (a) host shall be given up together with the daily sacrifice, because of transgression. Stuart renders, And a host was placed over the daily sacrifice by wickedness, and remarks: Put or place is a very common meaning of , as also the kindred signification to appoint, constitute: see Lex., over, in a hostile sense, implying that the daily sacrifice was subjected to oppression and impious supervision., by the rebel. Hence, in the N. Test., 2Th 2:3, (an exact version of ), also and in Dan 8:8 (ib.), ; expressions having their basis, as I apprehend, in the verse before us, and applied by Paul to some personage of a character similar to that of Antiochus.1]
[33][Stuart, on the other hand, strongly contends for the passive sense of here, equivalent to which ought to be laid waste or destroyed as being sustained not only by the intransitive force of the root, but by the distinctive use of the transitive in Dan 9:27. Keil takes substantially the same view.]
[34][This conclusion, however, is by no means certain, as the following considerations will serve to show: have no copula or conjunction between them; it would therefore seem to be a popular mode of compound expression, like that of the Greek (2Co 11:25), in order to designate the whole of a day. Compare Genesis 1, where the evening and morning constitute respectively day the first, day the second, etc.; for it seems plain that the phraseology before us is derived from this source. In other words, , as here employed, may be admitted to contain an allusion to the morning and evening sacrifices, and thus the phrase virtually becomes a kind of substitution for , which is generic, and includes both the morning and the evening sacrifice.Stuart. That in Dan 8:26 (the evening and the morning) stands for the phrase in question, does not prove that the evening and morning are reckoned separately, but only that evening-morning is a period of time consisting of evening and morning. When the Hebrews wish to express separately day and night, the component parts of a day of a week, then the number of both is expressed. Thus they say, e.g., forty days and forty nights (Gen 7:4; Gen 7:12; Exo 24:18; 1Ki 19:8), or three days and three nights (Jon 2:1; Mat 12:40), but not eighty or six days and nights, when, they wish to speak of forty or three full days.Keil.]
[35][These difficulties in the way of the literal exactness of the period in question as applicable to the history of the persecution by Antiochus Epiphanes, are drawn out in detail by Keil p. 302 et seq., who does not, however, add anything of importance to what the author adduces. They seem to us to be fairly met by the following explanation of Stuart in his Commentary, p. 238 et seq.: And then shall that which is holy be vindicated, , shall have justice done, i.e., the rights of the sanctuary shall be effectually restored, its claims shall be vindicated. This was done when Judas Maccabus, after the three and a half years in which all temple rites had been suspended, and heathen sacrifices had been offered there, made a thorough expurgation of everything pertaining to the temple, and restored its entire services. This was on the 25th of Dec., 165 B. C., just three years from the time when swines flesh was first offered there by Antiochus. We have then the terminus ad quem of the 2,300 days; and it is not difficult, therefore, to find the terminus a quo. These days, at thirty in a month (which is clearly the prophetic mode of reckoning), make six years, four months, and twenty days. Dec. 25th of 171 makes six years, and the four months and twenty days will bring the time to the latter half of July in the same year, i.e., 171 B. C. During this year, Menelaus, the high-priest appointed by Antiochus on the ground of a proffered bribe, rifled the temple of many of the treasures to pay that bribe, and in this transaction he was assisted by his brother Lysimachus. The regular and lawful high-priest, Onias III., who had been removed, severely reproved this sacrilege committed by his brethren; and afterward, through fear of them, fled for refuge to Daphne, an asylum near Antioch, in Syria. Thence he was allured by the false promises of Menelaus, and perfidiously murdered by the kings lieutenant, Andronicus. See the whole story in 2Ma 4:27 seq. The Jews at Jerusalem, incensed by the violent death of their lawful high-priest, and by the sacrilegious robberies of Menelaus and Lysimachus, became tumultuous, and a severe contest took place between them and the adherents of those who committed the robbery, in which the patriotic Jews at last gained the victory, and Lysimachus was slain at the treasury. This was the first contest that took place between the friends of Antiochus and the adherents to the Hebrew laws and usages. The whole of it was occasioned by the baseness of Antiochus in accepting bribes for bestowing the office of high-priest on those who had no just claim to it. The payment of the bribes occasioned the robbing of the temple and the sacrilege-committed there; and this was the commencement of that long series of oppression, persecution, and bloodshed which took place in the sequel under Antiochus.
We have, indeed, no data in ancient history by which the very day, or even month, connected with the transactions above related can be exactly ascertained. But the year is certain; and, as the time seems to be definite in our text, the fair presumption is, that the outbreak of the populace and the battle that followed constitutes the terminus a quo of the 2,300 days. See Frlich, Annates Reg. Syr., p. 46; and also Ushers Chronol. As to the difference between the time here, viz., 2,300 days, and the three and a half years in 7:25, if the reader narrowly inspects the latter, he will perceive that the time there specified has relation to the period during which Antiochus entirely prohibited the Jewish religion in every shape. This period, as is well known, corresponds with historical facts. In the passage before us a more extensive series of events is comprised, as Dan 8:10-12 indicate. They begin with assaults on the priesthood (which we have seen to be matter of fact, as stated above), and end with the desecration and prostration of all that is sacred and holy. It is unnecessary to show that each of the things described belongs to each and every part of the 2,300 days. Enough that the events are successive, and spread over the time specified in our text. The trampling down or degradation of the priesthood and the sanctuary commenced the whole series of oppression and persecution, and this, with most aggravated acts of sacrilege and blasphemy, was also the consummation of the tyrants outrages. Cowles gives a similar explanation in detail, Commentary, p. 378 et seq.]
[36][Keil, however, justly remarks: But , the time of the end, and , the appointed time of the end, is not the absolute end of all things, the time of the setting up of the regnum glori, and the time of the tribulation preceding the return of the Lord; but the time of the judgment of the world-kingdom and the setting up of the everlasting kingdom of God by the appearance of the Messiah, the end of and the commencement of the , the time of the (Dan 9:14), which an apostle calls (1Co 10:11) , and speaks of as having then already come. Stuart still more correctly says: End of what? Of Antiochus? or of a troublous state of things? or end of the world? Not merely of Antiochus; for his importance, as exhibited in the book of Daniel, arises principally from his power to annoy the people of God. Not the end of the world; for in chap. 8 no Messianic period is developed at the close of its predictions, and yet the Messianic reign is itself the end or last time of the world. Dan 8:19 gives us perhaps more light; , in the latter time of the indignation, i.e., the latter time of afflictions permitted to be brought upon Israel, because of the divine indignation against their sins. The vision itself in fact reaches only to the end of those special afflictions that are to come on the people of the Jews before the Messianic period, and which are made the subject of prophecy because of their importance. The warning to mark well or consider the vision, because it discloses these afflictions, connects itself of course with a supposed importance attached to the knowledge of the final special troubles of the Jews before the coming of the Messiah. The Rabbins call these troubles . In other words, as Keil presently says more distinctly, is the wrath of God against Israel, the punishment which God hung over them on account of their sins, as in Isa 10:5; Jer 25:11; Eze 22:24, etc., and here the sufferings of punishment and discipline which the little horn shall bring over Israel.]
[37][Stuart and Keil, on the contrary, strongly maintain that the transgressors here are not the heathen, but the apostate Jews, whose sin will be visited by the indignation of God; and this seems to be more appropriate to the whole connection.]
[38][ does not here signify many, numerous, many individual Israelites (Von Leng., Maurer, Kliefoth [Stuart]), partly because in Dan 8:25 stands for that partly because of the , by which we are to understand the people of IsraelKeil.]
[39][The language is adapted to the symbol, namely, the little horn. The meaning is, totally destroyed. Facts correspond. According to history, Antiochus, after marching into Persia, and robbing the temple at Elymais, was driven away by popular tumult; and on his return back towards Syria, he was met with the news of the total defeat of his army in Juda. and of the restoration of the temple services there. Polybius (31:11) says of him, that he fell mad () and died; 1Ma 6:8 relates that he fell sick of grief for his losses; Appian (De reb. Syr., 66) says simply: oivwv ereyeutrjoe. Various shades are given to the picture by the different writers; e.g., in 1Ma 6:8 seq., which narrates his penitent confessions. But these have a strong tinge of Jewish coloring. So much is undoubtedly true, viz., that he perished suddenly by a violent sickness, during which he probably fell into a state of mania. He died, therefore, without violence by the hand of man, and so as to make a deep impression of perishing by a peculiar visitation of God.Stuart.]
[40][With regard to the latter point at least the author concedes too much, for the Babylonian captivity was exactly seventy years in length, namely, from the fourth year of Jehoiakim, B. C. 606, to the edict of Cyrus, B.C. 536. See Brownes Ordo Sdorum, Daniel 3 sec. 1. 161 et seq. Had we the data extant we might doubtless prove the truth of the other periods named in Scripture prophecy with equal precision.]
[41][The three days and three nights in question are an exact expression according to Hebrew usage, which includes both extremes in all such periods.]
[42]Cf. Tholuck Die Propheten und ihre Weissagungen; eine apologetisch-hermeneutiche Studie (Gotha, 1860), p. 113 et seq., where the remark is made concerning the seventy years of Jeremiah, considered as being a designation of time that agreed, generally at least, with the duration of the captivity. Can any means of escaping this conclusion be discovered? Only that one, which, among others, Ewald has not despised, viz., to regard the number seventy as a round number, and therefore=a long time. . Is then, round number really=long time in the Oriental use of language? The master of Old-Test. language will certainly not attempt to deny that it rather denotes an approximate limitation of time! . Such numbers are clearly approximate, e.g., in Amo 2:4, where it is said, For three transgressions of Judah and for four, I will not turn away, etc; Mic 5:5, Then shall we raise against him seven shepherds and eight principal men; cf. Hos 6:2. In like manner a desolation of forty years is predicted for Egypt, by Ezekiel, in Eze 29:11-12, which is, indeed, a round number of probable reckoning, but is, at the same time, an approximate number, namely, 36 or 37, etc. [But these conventional numbers in a general statement are very different from those obviously given as chronological data.]
[43]In relation to the prophets of the Christian ra, above referred to, and also with regard to several others, cf. the interesting statements in Splittgerber, Schlaf und Tod, etc. (Halle. 1866), p. 235253. [But sound theologiansindeed, accurate observers merelywould certainly place all these pseudo-predictions on a very different level from those of the prophets of Scripture.]
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
CONTENTS
The Prophet is here favoured with more visions of God. An angel interprets the vision to Daniel. special allusions in the vision to the Church.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
The third year of the reign of Belshazzar must have been before what is related of his death in the fifth Chapter; only this vision of Daniel is not placed in that order. The Prophet had his mind so impressed with this vision, that he puts down the place in which he supposed himself to have been in vision, and twice repeats, that it was to him, even to him, the vision was shown. Under the figure of a ram with two horns, might not unaptly represent the divided kingdom or government of Media and Persia; as the after explanation of Gabriel makes it to be. But what I am chiefly earnest the Reader should keep in view, is, the reference the whole hath to the Church of Christ. Were it not for this one grand object, the very name of Babylon, and of the Medes and Persians, would hardly have been remembered at the present hour.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Dan 8:2
In his Remarkable Passages of the Life and Death of Mr. John Semple, minister of Carsphairn in Galloway, Patrick Walker tells how ‘that night after his wife died, he spent the whole ensuing night in prayer and meditation in his garden. The next morning, one of his elders coming to see him, and lamenting his great loss and want of rest, he replied: “I declare I have not, all night, had one thought of the death of my wife, I have been so taken up in meditating on heavenly things. I have been this night on the banks of Ulai, plucking an apple here and there.”‘
Dan 8:2
Even in a palace life may be lived well.
Marcus Aurelius.
See M. Arnold’s Sonnet, ‘Worldly Place’.
Dan 8:3-7
As I gazed out into vacancy, the grey masses began to move, to wave to and fro; it seemed as if the wind swept heavy veils away, and suddenly there lay disclosed right before me a sheet of cold, dark northern sea. A rock rose out of it, snow-covered, and carrying on its crags long icicles, which hung down to the sinister-looking water. On the top of the rock sat a huge polar bear; his paws were holding the carcass of the last animal he had found in this wilderness, and he looked triumphantly around as if to say, ‘Now am I sole lord of the world ‘. But already the black waters moved and gurgled, and out of them arose the shining body and the huge fins of a snake-like monster; his walrus head carried a real mane, and from his mouth hung seaweed and the remnants of some small fish the last he had found in the sea. His glassy, greenish eyes stared about, and they also seemed to say, ‘Now am I quite alone, master of the world ‘. But suddenly the huge white bear and the sea monster caught sight of each other; the enormous fins beat the waves, the cruel paws clawed at the rock. Both were yet gorged with food, but already they were measuring one another with angry looks like future adversaries. They had devastated the whole world, and now they met in this desolate waste for the ultimate fight…. I believe that for a moment the clouds which ever surround us had lifted, allowing me to catch a glimpse of the history of the world; which often is a history of wild beasts.
From The Letters Which Never Reached Him.
Compare the closing paragraphs of Victor Hugo’s Shakespeare.
Reference. VIII. 19. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xv. No. 888.
Dan 8:27
Great position often invests men with a second sight whose visions they lock up in silence, content with the work of the day.
John Morley.
Dan 8:27
There’s many a good bit of work done with a sad heart.
George Eliot’s Adam Bede.
References. IX. 1-13. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xlviii.. No. 2802. IX. 1-19. Ibid. vol. iii. No. 154.
Fuente: Expositor’s Dictionary of Text by Robertson
VI
THE RELATED PROPHETIC SECTIONS OF DANIEL
Having completed the historical sections of this book, we now consider the related prophetic sections. It is here we find the crux of the opposition of the atheistic critics. Their presupposition is: There can be no prophecy in any supernatural sense. Therefore they refuse to see any reference in the book to matters beyond the times of Antiochus Epiphanes. He to them is the culmination of the book. The unknown writer, as they claimed, lived after his times, and cast well-known history into the form of prophecy, attributing its authorship, through a license accorded to writers of novels, to a fictitious Daniel supposed to be living in the period between Nebuchadnezzar and Cyrus.
A complete answer to both their premise and conclusion would be the proof of even one real prediction in the book, fulfilled after their own assigned date for the author. Any one who really believes the New Testament will find that proof in the words of our Lord: “When therefore ye see the abomination of desolation which was spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the Holy Place (let him that readeth understand) then let them that are in Judea flee to the mountains.”
But as our purpose it to expound the prophetic sections of this book, and not merely to reply to the contentions of atheists, we now take up our work. These are the prophetic sections:
1. Nebuchadnezzar’s first dream of the great and luminous image, or the five world empires (Dan 2:31-45 ).
2. Nebuchadnezzar’s second dream of the great tree, or what befell the great king of the first world empire (Dan 4:10-27 ).
3. The handwriting on the wall at Belshazzar’s feast, or what befell the last king of the first world empire and how the second empire comes to the front (Dan 5:25-28 ).
4. The vision of the four great beasts arising from the sea, representing in another form the four secular world empires and the enthronement of the King of the fifth world empire (Dan 7:1-28 ).
5. The vision of the ram and the he-goat, or the fortunes of the second and third world empires (Dan 8:1-27 ).
6. The seventy weeks, or the coming and sacrifice of the Messiah, the King of the fifth world empire (Dan 9:24-27 ).
7. The vision of the Son of man (Dan 10 ).
8. Revelation of the conflicts between two of the divisions of the third world empire) and the transition to the final advent of the Messiah, the King of the fifth world empire (Daniel 11-12).
On these eight prophetic sections let us give careful attention to the following observations:
OBSERVATIONS ON THE EIGHT PROPHECIES TAKEN TOGETHER
1. The most casual glance at this grouping of the several prophetic sections reveals both the unity of the book and the relation of its prophetic parts and the design of all.
2. Any man who looks carefully at this group and finds its culmination in Antiochus Epiphanes, a ruler of a fourth fragment of the third world empire, either is devoid of common sense and should receive the charity accorded to those unfortunates afflicted with mental aberration, or is so blinded with prejudice he cannot see. In the case of the latter alternative this much of Paul’s words apply: “If our gospel be hid, it is hid to them whom the god of this world has blinded lest they should see,” or our Lord’s words, “Having eyes they see not.” An unbiased child can see that the culmination of the book as to a person is in the King of the fifth world empire, and the culmination as to a fact is in the Messiah’s final advent for resurrection and judgment.
3. Following the characteristic Bible method and plan, secular governments in this book are considered only as they relate to the supremacy of the divine government and to the kingdom of God. All the rest concerning them is left in silence.
4. The relation between the parts of the prophecy is manifest throughout: The first prophecy is the basis of all the following sections. They only elaborate some detail concerning one or the other of the five world empires set forth in the first dream of Nebuchadnezzar, the four-pointed image and the conquering stone. For example, the first prophecy tells in general terms of four successive world empires to be followed by a fifth and spiritual world empire. The second and third sections of prophecy elaborate some details of the first great secular monarchy, telling us what befell its first and last king and the transition to the second monarchy. The fourth prophecy presents under different imagery the same five world empires, but gives some detail of every one not stated in the general terms of the first prophecy.
The fifth prophecy confines itself to details not before given of the second and third monarchies, how sovereignty passes from one to the other, how the third is dismembered, to prepare the way for the fourth, and how both are related to the kingdom of God. The sixth prophecy speaks only of the King of the fifth monarchy in his humiliation and sacrifice, as the third had spoken of his glory and exaltation, and the seventh is the vision of the Son of man.
The eighth deals only at first with the strifes between two of the parts of the dismembered third monarchy, incidentally alluding to the coming power of the fourth monarchy, glides, by easy transition, from the first antichrist, Antiochus, to a second antichrist in the far distant future, an antichrist already foreshown in the little horn of the fourth beast, and concludes with the final advent of the king of the fifth monarchy. No other book in all literature, sacred or profane, more clearly evidences greater unity, one consistent plan, more order in treatment, or a more glorious climax.
Of very great interest to us and to all who love God and his cause is the development of the messianic thought as the hope of the world. It concerns us much to fix in our minds this development.
The first prophecy tells of the divine origin and ultimate prevalence of Messiah’s kingdom.
The sixth tells of Messiah’s first advent in his humiliation and sacrifice.
The fourth tells of his exaltation and enthronement after the humiliation.
The eighth tells of his final advent for resurrection and judgment.
And so we need to note the coming of the first antichrist. Antiochus, in the little horn of the third beast (Dan 8:9 ) and the second antichrist in the little horn of the fourth beast (Dan 7:8 ) identical with John’s antichrist, (Rev 13:1-8 ) with its papal head (Rev 13:11-18 ). And so we find reference to the third antichrist in Dan 11:34-45 who is not the same as Paul’s man of sin. (2Th 2:8 and Rev 20:11 ), but this third antichrist comes at the beginning of the millennium and wages a conflict against the Jews, at which time they will be converted and the millennium will be ushered in. Daniel does not see Paul’s man of sin.
How clearly and with what precious comfort do all these prophecies reveal the supreme government of God over nations and men, the universal sweep of his providence, both general and special!
5. Finally how well we can understand, in the light of these great prophecies, the influence of the man and his book on all subsequent ages. His apocalyptic style and symbolism reappear in Zechariah’s visions, and form the greater part of the basis of John’s New Testament apocalypse. His Son of man creates a messianic title which our Lord adopts. His unique prophecy of the exact time of Messiah’s first advent creates a preparation in the hearts of the pious to expect him just then. We could not understand old Simeon at all if Daniel hadn’t fixed the time. Other prophets had foretold his lineage, the place of his birth, his great expiation and consequent enthronement, but no other showed just when he would come. His stress on “the kingdom of God and its certain coming and prevalence” put the titles of this divine government in the mouths of John the Baptist, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Paul. His sublime character as evidenced in his temperance, wisdom, incorruptible integrity, audacity of faith, indomitable courage, and inflexible devotion to God, has fired the hearts of a thousand orators and created a million heroes. His words have become the themes of a thousand pulpits. His righteous administration of public affairs has created a thousand reformers in politics and supplied the hope of all subsequent civic righteousness. “Dare to be a Daniel” has become the slogan of the ages.
His distinction between duty to the human government and duty to the divine government prepared the way for the reception of our Lord’s great dictum, “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s.” He laid the foundation of the doctrine that the state cannot intrude into the realm of conscience, and so was the pioneer, piloting a burdened world to its present great heritage of religious liberty. This man was not a reed shaken by the wind. He was no Reuben, unstable as water. We can’t even think about him without wanting to sing:
How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
is laid for your faith in his excellent word. Born in the reign of good Josiah, thy childhood remembering the finding of the lost book of Moses, thy youth passed in the great reformation and thy heart warmed in the mighty revival that followed, student of Jeremiah, prime minister of two world empires and beloved of God thou art a granite mountain, O Daniel, higher than Chimborazo, Mount Blanc or Dwa Walla Giri! Snarling little critics, like coyotes, may grabble their holes in the foot-hills that lean for support against thy solidity, but their yelping can never disturb thy calm serenity nor the dust they paw up can ever dim the eternal sunshine of the smiles of God that halo thy summit. SELECTED.
Having now considered these eight prophetic sections in group, let us give attention to their exposition in severalty.
NEBUCHADNEZZAR’S FIRST DREAM God’s sovereignty extends to men asleep as well as to men awake. Often his spirit has made revelation through dreams. Dreams of indigestion are chaotic, without form, plan, or coherence. But dreams sent by the Spirit awaken after-thought, appeal to the intelligence and vividly impress the dreamer. So Jacob’s dream at Bethel of the ladder reaching from earth to heaven, on which the angels of God ascended and descended, or Pharaoh’s dreams interpreted by Joseph, and the dreams of Nebuchadnezzar. No human system of psychology has ever explained the subtle and direct impact of Spirit on spirit. It is quite possible that there may have been some connection between Nebuchadnezzar’s waking thoughts and the dream which follows. We can at least conceive of previous reflections on his part full of questionings to which this dream would be a pertinent answer.
He may well have meditated upon the worldwide empire he had established and wondered if it would last, and if not what other government would succeed, and would it last. He may have pondered the causes of stability in human government, or the elements of decay and disintegration, and have wondered if human history would always be a record of the successive rising and falling of nations, or would the time ever come when the earth would know a universal and everlasting kingdom, and if so, who would be its author and what the principles of its perpetuity. Nebuchadnezzar was a truly great man, a thinker and organizer, and he was a pious man according to the requirements of his religion. So he may have been the waking subject of thoughts and questionings to which God sends an answer in a dream by night. Anyhow, he had the dream, and this was the dream: He saw a great and terrible image, a silent and luminous colossus in human form, standing upon the level Babylonian plain. Its several parts were strangely incongruous. The head was gold, the chest and arms were silver, the lower body and thighs were brass, the legs were iron, ending in feet with ten toes whose iron was mingled with clay.
Did this image reveal the highest attainment of human government and prophecy, its inevitable deterioration from gold to silver, from silver to brass, from brass to iron, from iron to crumbling clay? Or did it suggest a succession of governments, the first with the greatest unity and the greatest excellency, one head and that gold? The second dual in composition with its two arms, third commencing one, but dividing into two thighs, the fourth standing dual in it he saw a little stone cut out of a mountain without human hands, falling to the plain and intelligently rolling toward the image, and rolling gathering bulk and momentum until it smites the image on its feet of mixed iron and clay, overthrows it, crushes it, pulverizes it, and rolling on in resistless power, ever growing as it rolls, until it becomes a mountain in bulk and fills the whole earth. Such the dream.
THE INTERPRETATION OF THE DREAM The dream foretells five great world empires:
The first is identified as the Babylonian.
The second is identified in the prophecy as the Medo-Persian.
The third is identified in the prophecy as the Grecian.
The fourth by a suggestion in the eighth prophecy as the Roman.
The fifth is the kingdom of God set up by the God of heaven and without hands in the days of the fourth empire.
CHARACTERISTICS OF THESE EMPIRES This is the characteristic of the first: Thou, O king, art king of kings unto whom the God of heaven hath given the kingdom, the power, and the strength and the glory, and wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the birds of the heaven hath he given into thine hands and hath made thee to rule over them all, and thou art that head of gold.
The characteristic of the second one is, so far as this chapter tells us, that it is inferior to the first. This chapter, in identifying the second world monarchy, simply tells us that it succeeds the Babylonian, the first, but in the later prophetic sections when this vision is elaborated it is expressly said to be a kingdom of the Modes and of the Persians. I say that the book of Daniel identifies the second world government as the Medo-Persian Empire just as plainly and explicitly and exactly as it identifies the first with the Babylonian.
Now when we come to the third, “another third kingdom of brass which shall bear rule over all the earth,” is all this chapter says about this one, but when we take up the subsequent prophetic section it is explicitly said to be the Grecian Empire, the thighs indicating subsequent division of the empire. One man said to me, “If the third empire is unquestionably the Greek Empire, how can it be represented as the lower body and two thighs divided into four parts?” My answer is that this book tells us that it did divide into four parts, but deals only with the two parts which touched God’s people. This book has nothing in detail to say about the divisions of Alexander’s empire beyond the Seleucids and the Ptolemies, one of them getting Syria and the other getting Egypt.
When he comes to speak of the fourth this is what he says: And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things, and as iron that crusheth, all these shall it break in pieces and crush. Whereas, thou sawest the feet and the toes, a part of potter’s clay and part of iron, it shall be a divided kingdom. But there shall be in it of the strength of the iron forasmuch as thou sawest iron mixed with the miry clay, and as the toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of clay, so shall the kingdom be partly strong and partly broken; and whereas, thou sawest the iron mingled with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men, but they shall not cleave one to another even as iron does not mingle with clay.
This book in this chapter does not name that fourth government, but when we come to consider the visions of the four beasts which is the same as this vision in another form, but with other details, we get a still clearer idea of the characteristics of this government; and when we come to chapter 2, when we are considering the last prophetic revelation, we have a suggestion where this fourth government comes in and holds Antiochus Epiphanes at bay, that place where the representative of Rome made a little circle in the sand around Antiochus and said, “You must answer before you step outside of that circle.” We know it also to be Rome because Rome with two legs divided into the Eastern and Western Empires, Constantine establishing Eastern Rome at Byzantium on the Bosporus while the Western Empire continues at Rome. We also know it by its divisions into ten kingdoms as its imperial supremacy passed away.
Here is what he says about the last kingdom:
1. He gives its origin: “I saw a little stone cut out without hands.” Those other four stood in the form of a man because man was the author of them all. This fifth one is divine, this fifth kingdom is set up by the God of heaven, and we should never lose sight of that fact.
2. The second thought that he presents is as to the time when the God of heaven would set up this kingdom; that it would be in the days of the fourth monarchy the Roman monarchy: “In the days of these kings will the God of heaven set up a kingdom.” So when a man asks when was the kingdom of heaven set up, and that, of course, means in its visible form, as the Babylonian kingdom was visible, the Medo-Persian kingdom was visible, the Greek kingdom was visible, the Roman kingdom was visible, and as God all the time had a spiritual kingdom, but now he is to set up a visible kingdom and it is to be just as visible as any of these others then, as a Baptist, I answer: Jesus set up the kingdom in his lifetime, as the Gospels abundantly show.
3. The third thought in this description of this kingdom is its beginning, its gradual progress, its prevalence over the whole earth, Just a pebble falling, and as it falls getting bigger, rolling, and as it rolls getting bigger, smiting these other governments, becoming a mountain, becoming as big as the world. And when we get to thinking about that progress of this kingdom, we should remember what our Lord said, that in its eternal working it is like leaven which a woman puts in three measures of meal and ultimately it leavens the whole lump; and when we think about its external development, it is like a grain of mustard seed which a man planted and it grew and grew and grew until it became a tree.
Whenever we hear a pessimist preaching an idea of a kingdom like a tadpole, that commences big at first and tapers to a very fine tail, getting smaller and smaller and worse and worse, then that is not the kingdom Daniel spoke of.
His kingdom commences small and gets bigger and bigger, and mightier and mightier, and I thank God that I don’t have to preach concerning a kingdom that is continually “petering out.” I am glad that I can preach a gospel that is growing in power and extending in domain and that has the promise of God that it shall fill the whole world and be everlasting. It always did give me the creeps to hear one of those pessimists. They get their ideas from an inexcusable misinterpretation of certain passages of the Scriptures.
I heard one of them say, “Doesn’t our Lord say in answer to the direct question, ‘Are there few that will be saved?’ that ‘Straight is the gate and narrow is the way and few there be that find if ?” I said, “Yes, but to whom did he say that?” To the Jews of his day, and then to prevent a misconstruction, while only a few Jews of his day would be saved, he says, “But I say unto you that many shall come from the east and the west and the north and the south and shall recline at the table with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.” The thought reappears in Revelation where John sees the host of the redeemed. He introduces us first to 144,000 Jews and then he shows us a line that no man can see the end of: “I saw a great multitude that no man could number out of every nation and tribe and tongue and kindred.” So if the kingdom which Jesus Christ in the days of his flesh set up on this earth is narrowing, that is cause for sadness, but if it is spreading out, growing bigger and bigger, and has perpetuity, that is a cause for gladness.
This visible kingdom of Jesus Christ will be perpetual. Perpetuity is its heritage.
We need not be afraid to preach its perpetuity and its visibility, with visible subjects, with visible ordinances, with a visible church charged with its administration. It will not be sponged off the board, any of it, neither the kingdom nor its gospel nor its church nor its ordinances. They will stand until the rivers shall be emptied into the sea. As Dr. Burleson used to say: “It will be standing when grass quits growing, and we should not be afraid to preach perpetuity.” Let us not be too sure that we can take a surveying chain and trace that perpetuity through human agencies and human history, but we may certainly stand on the declaration of God’s Word that this kingdom is everlasting: Forasmuch as thou sawest that a stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that in the days of those kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed, nor shall the sovereignty thereof be left to another people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever.
Over and over again in this book, Daniel holds out, as he explains the thought of this first dream as a light that gets bigger and bigger and brighter and brighter, that the saints shall possess the kingdoms of the world.
I expect to see (in the flesh or out of the flesh it matters not ) every mountain of this earth or mountain range and every valley between and every plain, whether rich red land like the Panhandle or dry sand like the Sahara Desert; and every zone, Arctic, Temperate, or Torrid: every iceberg shivering in the Aurora Borealis around the North Pole or South Pole, have floating over it the great white conquering banner of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
We are to have every bit of it, and the time will come when no fallen angel will flap his wing and make a shadow on any part of it and when no wicked man shall crush beneath his feet any of its beautiful or sweet flowers, but when the meek shall inherit the earth, and throughout the whole earth, after its regeneration, there shall dwell eternal righteousness.
QUESTIONS
1. Give, in order, the prophetic sections of the book of Daniel.
2. Show the unity of the book from these sections.
3. Show the culmination of the book in person and fact.
4. In what respect only are secular governments considered in this book and throughout the Bible?
5. Show the relations of the prophetic sections to each other and how all the rest are developments of the first.
6. Give, in order, all the developments of the messianic thought.
7. Give the several antichrists, citing passages for each.
8. What great doctrine of special comfort do all these prophecies show?
9. Give particulars to show the influence of the man and the book on later ages.
10. Name the five world empires of Dan 2 .
11. What are the characteristics of the fifth, who its author and when set up?
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
VIII
THE RELATED PROPHETIC SECTIONS OF DANIEL (CONTINUED)
Dan 8:1-27
This chapter considers the fifth prophetic section of the book of Daniel found in Dan 8 . The theme of the chapter is the overthrow of the Medo-Persian Empire by Alexander the Great, the fourfold division of his empire, and the oppression of Israel by Antiochus Epiphanes, a later king of one of the four divisions.
The date of the prophecy is the third year of the reign of Belshazzar, and if we had observed the order of time, both this and the preceding chapter would have come before the history in Dan 5 .
The language of Dan 8 is Hebrew, that is, the Hebrew language is resumed here and continued to the end. The middle section of the book of Daniel is in Aramaic. The place of the vision cannot be determined from the language of the book. (I am quoting from the Jewish version for a particular reason on this lesson). In the third year of the reign of King Belshazzar a vision appeared unto me, to me, Daniel, after that which had appeared unto me at the first [he had seen a vision the first year of Belshazzer’s reign], and I saw in the vision and it came to pass in my seeing that I was at Shushan, the capital, which is in the province of Elam, and I saw in the vision as though I was by the river Ulai.
It does not follow that Daniel was at Shushan (or Susa, as the name is more generally called) in the body. It may only mean that he was there in vision, just as in Ezekiel he says, “In a vision, I was at Jerusalem,” though he never left the place of his captivity in Babylon. Susa, or Shushan, which later became the Persian capital under Cyrus, had long been a noted place. We have a monumental inscription concerning it made by Asshur-banipal, the Assyrian king, who conquered Manasseh 668 B.C., at least sixty years before the Babylonian Empire obtained its supremacy, and a century and a half before the Persian supremacy, to this effect: “Shushan, the great city, the seat of their gods, the place of their oracles, I captured”; that is, Assyria had its supremacy before Babylonia, and before the days of the Assyrian supremacy Susa was a great city and the capital of Elam. So we need not be disturbed by the contention of the radical critics that Daniel mentions the city and palace at Susa before the Persians came into power and made it their capital. In the later books of Nehemiah and Esther, Susa is the Persian capital, but long before Daniel’s day it was a great city and the capital of Elam. This vision presents the river Ulai. It was a small artificial river near Susa, connecting two other rivers, and Pliny, a Roman writer, calls it Eulaeris. Asshur-banipal boasts that he covered its waters with blood. We come now to the vision that he saw. First, the ram.
And I lifted up mine eyes and saw and behold there was a ram standing before the river and he had two horns and the horns were high, but one was higher than the other, and the highest one came up last. I saw this ram butting westward, northward, and southward. [He comes from the east himself, and he dosen’t butt backward. The directions of the progress of the empire are signified.] So that no beast could stand before him, and no one was there to deliver out of his hand, and he did according to hia will and became great. Dan 8:3-4 .
In Dan 2:32 the symbol of the Medo-Persian Empire is the breast and the two arms of silver; the breast indicates its unity and the arms its duality. Its characteristic in that first vision is its inferiority to the Babylonian Empire. In Dan 7:5 (which we considered in the last chapter) the symbol is the bear with one side higher than the other. The unity is in the one animal and the duality is in the two sides, with this distinction, that one side is higher than the other. There it appears with three ribs in its teeth, indicating extent of its power over Assyria, Babylonia, and Egypt, the great countries heretofore related to Israel. Its characteristic is a devourer, but here the symbol of this second empire, the Medo-Persian, is a ram. The unity is expressed in the one beast, its duality in the two horns; the distinction is that one horn is higher than the other and a new distinction it is the second horn which is the higher, that is, the rise of the Persian power was later than that of the Medes, but it went higher after it got started. Here also, instead of the three ribs of the bear, we have the true directions of its conquest, the ram coming from the east pushes westward, that is, from Babylon to the Mediterranean Sea; pushes northward, that is, to the old realm of Assyria, even up to the Caspian Sea, pushes south-ward, that is, to Egypt. So that these pushings agree with the three ribs we had in a preceding section. His characteristic here is that he is a conqueror, for our record says, “No beast could stand before him, neither was there any that could deliver out of his hand, for he did according to his will and magnified himself.” I have several times called attention to these developments by an elaboration of details from the first vision in the second chapter of this book. These developments are obvious and evident. In like manner we may trace the developments in the third empire. And as I was looking attentively at the ram, behold, there came a shaggy he-goat from the west. [The ram was from the east, but the goat is coming from the west.] He came from the west over the face of the whole earth without touching the ground. [I suppose he means, except in the high places.] And the goat had a sightly large horn between his eyes and he came as far as the ram that had two horns that I had seen standing before the river, and he ran at him with furious power. [We can see with our imagination that goat.] And I saw him coming closer unto the ram. [The old saying is that we can never conquer until we shorten our sword, that is, by fighting at close range. The goat believes in fighting at close range.] I saw him coming closer unto the ram and he became highly enraged against the ram and stuck the ram and broke his two horns, and there was no power in the ram to stand before him, and he cast him down to the ground and stamped upon him. And there was no one to deliver the ram out of his hand, and the shaggy he-goat became very great. Dan 8:5-8 .
In Dan 2:32 the symbol of this third empire is the lower part of the body of the image and the thighs, the body indicating the unity, the thighs the duality, or only those two divisions which touch the history of Israel. Its characteristic there is the universality of its conquests, “which shall bear rule over all the earth.” In Dan 7:6 , presented in our last chapter, the symbol is the four-winged leopard, the wings indicating its speed of conquest, just like that goat coming without touching the ground; the one beast indicates the unity, the four heads indicating its subsequent divisions and its characteristic, “and dominion was given to it.”
In this chapter the symbol of the same empire is a he-goat coming from the west, as the ram had come from the east, and the characteristic is “over the whole earth and touched not the ground,” which answers to the wings of the leopard and indicates the speed of his conquests. The one great horn indicates the unity of the kingdom under its first king, who magnifies himself exceedingly; the fury and destructive power of his assault on the ram is very vividly imaged. The four notable horns that came up after the one great horn was broken off, indicates the division of his empire into four parts after the death of the first king, but with only two of these four parts is this book concerned. The symbolism now advances to an entirely new element. And out of one of the four horns came forth a little horn “which became exceedingly great toward the south and toward the east and toward the glorious land, [That is, toward Egypt, toward the old Persian realm, and toward Judea particularly.] And it became great even up to the hosts of heaven, and cast down to the ground some of the hosts and of the saints and trod them under his foot. Yea, it magnified itself even up to the Prince of the hosts and by it the continual sacrifice was taken away and the place of his sanctuary was cast down and the host is given up together with the continual sacrifice by reason of transgression and it casteth down the truth to the ground and it doeth this and is prosperous. Dan 8:9-12 ,
In the same chapter we have the interpretation: The ram that thou sawest with the two horns signifieth the king of the Medes and Persians, and the shaggy he-goat is the king of Greece, and the great horn which is between his eyes is the first king that is, Alexander the Great] but that it was broken [Alexander died in Babylon] and that four others sprang up into its stead, signifies that four kingdoms will spring up out of the nation, but not with his power [that is, no one of these will equal the power of Alexander the Great]. Dan 8:20-22 .
Any schoolboy who is familiar with the history of Alexander the Great knows that even at his death he made provision for this division of his kingdom. The divisions were these: (1) Macedonia, including Greece proper, was one, Cassander, the king. Now with that we have very little to do in this book. (2) Asia Minor went to Lysimachus. With that we have very little to do. (3) Syria was assigned to Seleucus. With that we have the most to do. (4) Egypt was given to Ptolemy. With that we have much to do in this book.
This book, when referring to Syria, that division of Alexander’s empire with its capital at Antioch, calls it the Kingdom of the North, and Egypt is called the Kingdom of the South. The rulers of Syria were called Seleucidae from Seleucus, the general that obtained that kingdom; the Egyptian kings were called Ptolemies from Ptolemy, that great general of Alexander who obtained that kingdom.
We will now go on with the interpretation. “And in the latter time of their kingdom,” that is, of the kingdom of these four divisions later on in history, “when the transgressors have filled their measure of guilt,” that is, the Jewish transgressors, “there will arise a king [now we come to the little-horn man], of an impudent face and understanding deep schemes, and his power will be mighty, but not by his own power; and he will destroy wonderfully, and he will prosper while he doeth this, and he will destroy very many of the people of the saints, and through his intelligence, and because he prospereth in craftiness in his hand, and in his heart will he magnify himself and in peace will he destroy many. He will also stand up against the Prince of princes,” that is, the God of heaven himself, “but without human hand will he be broken.” That is the interpretation.
When Daniel saw the vision of the ram with his two horns, the he-goat with one horn, the destruction of the ram, the death of the first king, or the breaking of the horn of the he-goat, the rising up of four kingdoms in the place of Alexander’s kingdom and later on in the Grecian history, that is to say, about 140 years, there comes to the throne of Syria by craftiness of his own power a king known in history as Antiochus Epiphanes. Some of his contemporaries call him Antiochus Epimanes, which means, “mad man,” making a play upon the word.
This Antiochus Epiphanes [we find an account of what he did, not only here in this book but in First Maccabees] makes war with Egypt. His object is this: He wants to hedge against the rising power of Rome, the fourth empire, before which Macedonia and Asia Minor have already fallen. In order to do this he seeks to unite the Egyptian division with the Syrian division and half-way between him and Egypt is the Holy Land, and in order to make his kingdom, as he lays it out in his mind, homogeneous, he wants but one religion in it) just as Louis XIV said there could be but one religion in France, that is, Roman Catholicism, deeming it necessary to the safety of the state to have no troubles about religion. So after he had defeated the king of Egypt in battle in the one hundred and forty third year of the Grecian supremacy, he came to Jerusalem and took it, and took away its sacred vessels. A great many of the apostate Jews had determined to unite with him on this one religion. Men that would be called Sadducees in a later day (and they started about this time), men that thought religion should yield to political necessities, made a covenant with him, and so he established in the city of Jerusalem the idol worship of Jupiter, and these apostate Jews joined him in it. He sacrificed a hog on the sacred altar and positively forbade any Jew to observe the Commandments of Moses’ law. They were not to be circumcised, they were not to make an offering in the Temple. The whole sacrifice should cease that continual offering every evening and every morning that they had been used to since the days of Solomon. Ever since the days of Moses in the wilderness that evening and morning service had been kept up. He took away that continual sacrifice, and defiled the Temple. That put him against the God of heaven himself. This erection of an idol in the holy place is the first abomination of desolation. It was one of the most blasphemous and wicked usurpations of power known to history, made him the first antichrist and handed down his name to the execration of all succeeding generations. The first book of Maccabees will ever be regarded as a glorious history of this dark period.
The record now passes to a new theme, the voices of the angels, showing heaven’s interest in these tragic earthly affairs: “Then did I hear a certain holy one speaking, and a holy one said unto the unknown one who was speaking. For how long is the vision concerning the continual sacrifice, and the wasting transgression, to give up both the sanctuary and host to be trodden under foot?”
Well angels might be concerned. There had been no interruption of this continual sacrifice for many centuries. Paul says, “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels.”
Daniel now hears the angels talking, and understands what they say. One holy one says to another holy one, “How long is this to last, this subjection of the host, that is, the people of Israel, this cessation of the continued sacrifice; how long is it to last? . . . And he said unto him, Until two thousand three hundred evenings and mornings, when the sanctuary shall be justified,” that is, purified or cleansed. Two thousand and three hundred days. I said that in the one hundred and forty-third year of Greek history Antiochus took Jerusalem and in the one hundred and forty-ninth year Antiochus died. By taking the month dates in these years, the interval is six years and one hundred and ten days. Counting a year 360 days, which the Jews did, that makes 2,300 days from the day that he entered Jerusalem and subjected the host of the Jews to him until by his death their oppression ceased, so far as he was concerned. It was not 2,300 days until Judas Maccabeus recaptured Jerusalem and purified the sanctuary, but the question covers more than the purification of the sanctuary; the question propounded was this: “For how long is the vision concerning the continual sacrifice and wasting transgression to give up both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot?” The answer is 2,300 days in the first book of Maccabees.
THE SON OF GOD We now come to a still more marvelous thing more marvelous than the voices of the angels to which Daniel has been listening. Here is a new thing, verse Dan 8:15 : “And it came to pass when I, even I, Daniel, saw the vision, and sought for understanding, that, behold, there was standing opposite to me something like the appearance of a man.” Here we learn first that Daniel did not understand his own vision, but sought to understand it. The contention of the radical critics that a prophet is conscious of the meaning of his prophecy and therefore limits his prophecy to the matters of his own time of which he has information, is every way baseless. A passage from the New Testament is very pertinent here: Concerning which salvation the prophets sought and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you, searching what time or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ which was in them did point unto, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glories that should follow them. To whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto you, did they minister these things, which now have been announced unto you through them that preached the gospel unto you by the Holy Spirit sent forth from heaven, which things angels desire to look into.
Not only the prophets did not understand, but the angelsin heaven do not understand all the things foretold in symbol, ceremonial, type, vision, and prophecy. They are themselves instructed by the church in the events as they are fulfilled. Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, was this grace given, to preach unto the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ; and to make all men see what is the dispensation of the mystery which for ages hath been hid in God, who created all things; to the intent that now unto the principalities and the powers in the heavenly places might be made known through the Church the manifold wisdom of God. Eph 3:8-11 .
Daniel couldn’t understand what he saw, and angels, unless instructed, cannot understand these future events. They have no omniscience, but as the church in its history unfolds, unrolls the wisdom of God, foretold for future ages, the onlooking angels see and understand, “which things the angels desire to look into,” and that curiosity of the angels is admirably expressed in the golden cherubim with outspread wings bending over and looking intently down upon the blood-stained mercy seat.
But the chief thing is: “There was standing opposite to me something like the appearance of a man and I heard the voice of a man.” This occurs between the banks of the Ulia, “and it called and said, Gabriel, cause this one to understand this vision.” That was a pre-manifestation of Christ. We will come to another far more startling pre-manifestation when we get to Dan 10 , but Christ was there as the Son of God, and Daniel felt his presence, saw the form like the form of the son of man, which didn’t speak to Daniel, but he spoke to the angel Gabriel, and tells Gabriel to explain to Daniel: So he came close to where I stood and when he came I was terrified. I fell on my face. But he said unto me. Oh son of man; for the time of the end shall be the vision. Now as he was speaking with me I fell down in amazement on my face to the ground but he touched me and set me upright where I had been standing. DANIEL.
In Gen 15 , Abraham sees in vision the Word of God. That is the first time the phrase, “Word of God,” occurs. He sees the Logos, and the Logos talks with him, and after a while takes hold of his hand and leads him out of the tent and tells him to look up and count the stars of heaven if he can, and to know that his seed will be more numerous than they. We had one pre-manifestation of the Son of God, a fourth one, walking with them in the furnace. Thus the Son of God himself, through Gabriel, gives the interpretation we have already considered.
THE DEATH OF ANITOCHUS The fortunes of this wicked king were fast becoming desperate. Egypt was lost on the south, Rome had checked him there and was pressing him hard on the east. His affairs in Judea, under his generals, were in bad shape through the triumphs of Judas Maccabeus. He needed money to enlist and support a larger army against the victorious Jews. In this extremity he determines to seize the rich city of Elmias, in Persia, and rob its temple, stored with rich offerings under Persian rule and still richer gifts from the liberality of Alexander the Great. Its sturdy citizens, always jealous of the privileges of the city, resisted and defeated him. This disaster was followed by the news of the triumph of Judas’ Maccabeus over his general Lysias, the recapture of Jerusalem and the purification of the sanctuary. The unwelcome tidings completely broke his spirit. He died in despair by the judgment of God. The record says, “broken without hand.” The first book of Maccabees, Dan 6 , gives a thrilling account of his downfall, and says that in his dying confession he attributed all his misfortune to his persecution of the Jews and their religion. His doom reminds us of the remorse and despair of Judas Iscariot.
QUESTIONS
1. What is the date of this vision?
2. Where is the scene of the vision?
3. How do you reply to the contention of the critics that reference to Susa indicates a late origin of the book?
4. To which two world empires is the vision limited?
5. Show the conformity of the vision with the preceding visions (Dan 2:7 ) in their relation to these two empires, and what new details appear here?
6. Who is the “little born” of this vision and how is it distinguished from the “little horn” in Dan 7 ?
7. What the most infamous deed of Antiochus?
8. What political reasons prompted him to destroy the religion of Jehovah, and what parallel in later history for similar reasons?
9. What was the abomination of desolation he placed in the Temple?
10. What great hero overthrew his power in Judea and purified the Temple?
11. What Jewish inter-biblical book gives a thrilling history of this period?
12. Give an account of the death of Antiochus and its occasion.
13. How do you explain the time period, 2,300 evenings and mornings?
14. What interest in heaven was excited by the impiety of Antiochus?
15. What voices did Daniel hear? What desire did these voices excite in Daniel?
IX
THE MARVELOUS NINTH CHAPTER OF DANIEL
Dan 9:1-27
This chapter contains the most marvelous prophecy of the Old Testament. It is also the most remarkable in its messianic features. More definitely than all others together, it fixes the date of the first coming of the Messiah. Accordingly, its confirmation in the New Testament, especially when considered with its cognate visions, goes beyond any other Old Testament book except the Law. Our Lord himself attests it in a most extraordinary way. Moreover, in every age since its publication, it has exceptionally attracted the attention of Old Testament students, and has called forth a vast volume of literature. For 2,500 years the scholars of the world, whether saints or sinners, Jews or Gentiles, Christians or infidels, have devoted themselves to its exposition. In the efforts to defend, on the one hand, or to discredit on the other, every word in it has been under a thousand microscopes of criticism. An ordinary lifetime would hardly suffice for reading all the literature pro and con that it has evoked. Let us, reverently and prayerfully, address ourselves to its exposition.
I commence by submitting this first and simplest outline of the whole chapter.
1. THE DATE AND OCCASION, (Dan 9:1-2 )
The date is the first year of Darius the Mede, about one year after the capture of Babylon by the Medes and Persians, and about one year before the end of Jeremiah’s predicted seventy years of Jewish servitude to Babylon. Daniel is studying the Jewish Scriptures all the books then extant Our English word “books” in Dan 9:2 translate a Hebrew term in the plural that, in usage, signifies either all the Jewish Scriptures collectively, or a group of them, as “the books of Moses,” or merely an epistle, which is only a fragment of a book, as in 2Ki 19:14 and Isa 37:14 .
It is certain that Jeremiah had sent a letter to the Jews in Babylon, which embodies much of the precise matter which Daniel is studying, and to whose very peculiarities of phraseology this ninth chapter refers several times. So far, then, as one example of the usage may determine, it may be that it is only Jeremiah’s letter that Daniel is studying. The whole context, however, seems to require the meaning that the more extended usage of the word justifies. The whole book of Jeremiah was evidently before him, since the letter says nothing of “desolation,” so specially clear in Jer 25:11 , and so pointedly quoted in Dan 9:2 of this chapter. Moreover, the prayer specially cites the law of Moses, indicates familiarity with the Psalms, cites not only the continuous history of the people as recorded by the prophets, but also the messages of the prophets, so that we may conclude, fairly, that Daniel possessed all the books of the canon then extant, that is to say, all but Esther, Ezra, Nehemiah, 2 Chronicles, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. At any rate, one of the particular matters engaging his attention is Jeremiah’s prediction of the seventy years’ servitude, which period he now understands to be near its end. So that we need first to consider as an important element of the occasion of Daniel’s prayer:
1. Jeremiah’s seventy years. Some have supposed that Jeremiah predicts two periods of seventy years one of the “servitude” and the other of the “desolation.” The three most important passages in his book bearing on the matter are: Jer 25:8-12 ; Jer 27:16-22 ; Jer 29:1-10 . In these passages and elsewhere in his book, the prophet foretells, with precision, the end of an independent Jewish monarchy by the servitude of the kings of Judah to Babylon, the deportation of certain captives, the spoliation of a part of the sacred vessels of the sanctuary, and finally, the total destruction of the city, with a larger deportation of Captives. The prophet then foretells that this servitude shall last seventy years; that these captives and these captured vessels shall not return to Jerusalem before that time; that this captivity is by the will of God, whose unconscious servant Nebuchadnezzar is, and is meant for good and not evil, since those led into captivity shall not only have a better fate than is reserved for the remnant in Judah, but that the captives preserved in Babylon shall become the true seed of a better nation in the future. He therefore urges the captives to indulge in no vain hopes of speedy release, but to address themselves to the cultivation of the land assigned to them in Babylon, and to pray for the peace and prosperity of Babylon, as for their own peace and prosperity. He then assures them at the end of the seventy years they shall return to their native land. This is the period of seventy years which furnishes the first element of the occasion of Daniel’s prayer.
Following the general view of only one period of seventy years, we now proceed to determine its beginning and end. The period commences 606 B.C., in the third year of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, as appears from 2Ki 24:1 ; 2Ch 36:5-7 ; Dan 1:1 . On that date the independent Jewish monarchy ends, just 490 years after the coronation of Saul, the first king, which itself was just 490 years after the entering into Canaan. Thus the monarchy of the Chosen People died a royal death with the good King Josiah at the battle of Megiddo a battle so disastrous that it became the type of the great spiritual battle of Armageddon in John’s Apocalypse, to be followed by the battle of Jehoshaphat and because of the sorrows of apostate Israel on beholding the Messiah whom they have pierced. True, three members of Josiah’s family held the throne for a very few years, but only as servants of the king of Babylon. So in this case it is true that Jehoiakim, bound in fetters, is temporarily released and retains a nominal authority under Nebuchadnezzar by yielding to his spoiler a part of the sacred vessels of the Temple and certain selected youths of the royal family, including Daniel, who are to become servants in the imperial household of Babylon. This was the first deportation of the captives from Judea. With this beginning of the period fixed, we find that it ends 536 B.C., according to the express statements of 2Ch_36:24-25; and Ezr 1:1-3 , which is the year after Cyrus conquered Babylon. We may, therefore, understand why this prediction of the seventy years became an occasion for Daniel’s prayer only one year remains of the seventy. Babylon has fallen as Jeremiah predicted, but there is no sign in the political sky of the new regime to intimate the return of the captive Jews. They remain in bondage to the Medes and Persians, as they had been to Babylon. Therefore, Daniel prays for the fulfilment of the promise.
2. The second element in the occasion of the prayer is the denunciation of the Levitical law, that for every seventh year the Holy land was denied its sabbath of rest, the people should remain one year in bondage (Lev 25:2-4 ; Lev 26:34-43 ; 2Ch_36:24-24). From Saul, 1096 B.C., to Jehoiakim, 606 B.C., just 490 years the land had been robbed of seventy years of rest one-seventh of the 490 this is as precise as the prophecy of Jeremiah in fixing the limit of the bondage.
3. The third element in the occasion of the prayer is the curse and oath of Moses, set forth so vividly in the closing chapters of Deuteronomy, to which the prayer so feelingly refers. Indeed, the prayer itself recites as an occasion of the troubles of the people their continuous sins through every period of their history, whether under Moses, the judges, or the kings sins against both the Sinaitic covenant and the repeated messages of God through the prophets.
4. A fourth occasion of the prayer may be fairly inferred from the prayer itself, i.e., the prophet’s evident consciousness that no real atonement had ever been made for the sins of the people. Their ritualistic atonement had merely symbolized the true remission of sins and passed them over to be provided for in the great antitype of the ceremonial law.
5. Daniel’s previous visions also may well constitute an element of the occasion of this prayer. From his interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, he evidently saw that it wag only in the days of the fourth world empire that the God of heaven would set up his gospel kingdom, and far, far beyond its setting up, the stone becomes a mountain and fills the whole earth. Again, in his vision of the four beasts rising up out of the sea, he evidently understands that it is only in the days of the fourth beast and in the time of the eleventh horn of this beast, calling for a remote period after the establishment of the fourth world empire, does the Son of man receive his kingdom of judgments from the Ancient of Days, that is to eventuate in putting the saints of the Most High in possession of the whole earth. And yet, again, in his visions of the two beasts, representing respectively the second and third world empires, he beholds his people near the close of the third empire grievously oppressed and their restored sanctuary defiled. Those considerations, taken together the 70 weeks of Jeremiah, the curse of the Levitical law concerning the land, the curse and oath of Moses, the prophet’s consciousness that the sins of their whole national history have never been really expiated, but only passed over, and the far-off date of the setting up of Messiah’s gospel kingdom, and the still more distant date of his kingdom of judgments, and the still more distant date of the prevalence of his millennium kingdom throughout the earth these constitute sufficient occasion to bow down on his knees in fervent prayer the best and the wisest man. So far the occasion. Let us now consider
II. THE PRAYER, (Dan 9:3-19 )
This prayer consists of three parts: confession, adoration, and supplication.
1. There is a heartbroken confession of the continuous sins of the whole nation judges, kings, and people against both the law and the prophets throughout every period of their history.
2. Over against these sins of the people, the prophet, by adoration places in sharp contrast the attributes of God eternal righteousness, long-suffering, mercy, forgiveness, truthfulness in both promises and threats, and a watching providence that never sleeps and that never fails to bring home a threatened curse or a promised blessing.
3. Supplication: How fervent, how pathetic, how importunate his prayer! He prays for the holy, but desolate, city: “O Lord, turn thine anger from Jerusalem;” he prays for the Temple: “Shine upon thy sanctuary;” he prays for the forgiveness of the sins of the people. And all this, not for Jerusalem’s sake, or the Temple’s sake, or the people’s sake, but for God’s own sake, and for the sake of his great mercies. The prayer closes in these burning words: “O Lord, hear! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, hearken and do; defer not for thine own sake, O my God! For thy city and thy people are called by thy name.”
III. THE ANSWER TO THE PRAYER, (Dan 9:20-27 ) The answer is instant. As Daniel says, “While I was speaking and praying and confessing my sin and the sin of my people, Israel, and presenting my supplication before Jehovah, my God, for the holy mountain of my God; yea, while I was speaking in the prayer,” the answer came; or as the one who brought the answer says: “At the beginning of thy supplications the commandment went forth) and I am come to tell thee.”
The answer was not only distant, but mediate, that is to say, through the angel Gabriel: “The man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, touched me about the time of the evening oblation, and he instructed me and talked with me, and said, O Daniel, I am now come forth to give thee wisdom and understanding.”
The answer to the prayer, as conveyed by the angel Gabriel, is the great prophecy which we are now to expound, and which is thus rendered in the American Standard Version: Seventy weeks are decreed upon thy people and upon thy holy city to finish transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy. Know therefore and discern, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the anointed one, the prince, shall be seven weeks, and three score and two weeks; it shall be built again, with street and moat, even in troublous times. And after the three score and two weeks shall the anointed one be cut off, and shall have nothing; and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and even unto the end shall be war; desolations are determined. And he shall make a firm covenant with many for one week; and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the obligation to cease; and upon the wing of abominations shall come one that maketh desolate; and even unto the full end, and that determined, shall wrath be poured out upon the desolate. Dan 9:24-27 .
And now, before an attempt at exposition, attention is called to a preliminary observation: There are many English versions of this Hebrew text, all worthy of consideration, but it is needful for the present purpose to cite only four modern ones, namely, (1) The common, or King James Version; (2) The Canterbury revision; (3) The same revision with the renderings of the American corps of revisers substituted for the rendering of the British corps where they differ; (4) Lessor’s Jewish version. Now, when we compare their several translations of this prophecy, we find a marked difference in the punctuation, which very greatly affects the sense, and necessarily determines widely different lines of exegesis.
The exegesis now to be given will follow the punctuation of the American revisers in the Standard Bible, with which the King James Version agrees. The Canterbury revision and Leeser’s modern Jewish version adopt a punctuation which necessitates a certain beginning for the period, and necessitates two Messiahs, and in other important respects make both chronology and interpretation impossible on any theory consistent with the inspiration of Daniel or of the New Testament writers, or of the divinity of Jesus. Tremendous results to base on punctuation alone, when the ancient Hebrew had no punctuation? But here the modern Jew, the infidel, and the destructive higher critic plant themselves together. As, however, this matter of punctuation comes up again when this discussion reaches the several theories of interpretation, it is dismissed for the present, that we may proceed with the exposition.
For the better understanding of this remarkable answer to Daniel’s prayer we need a new outline and a special analysis. It cannot escape notice that Dan 9:24 , the first verse of the prophecy, treats of the seventy weeks as a whole, enumerating, in a general but strictly orderly way, the things to be accomplished in the period, while in the other three verses the seventy weeks are first separated into three unequal subdivisions, namely, seven weeks, sixty-two weeks, and one week, with the assignment to each of its appropriate events, and, second, the one week is divided into two equal parts, making the middle of the last week the climax of the prophecy.
Nor can it escape notice that the prophecy throughout is designedly marked with order, precision, and definiteness of statement on all points of chronology and fact. In any sensible analysis, which combines the general and particular statements of the prophecy, it is evident that all the great events specified in verse 24, must, as to order, be assigned to the climax, the middle of the last week. As covering, therefore, the whole ground and properly correlating the several parts is now submitted the following
EXEGETICAL ANALYSIS OF Dan 9:24-27
I. God’s great decree concerning the Jews
II. Meaning, or duration, of the seventy weeks
III. When they begin, or terminus a quo
IV. Sixty-two weeks, or 434 years, with the preceding 49 years, making 483 years to the coming of Messiah, the King V. The seven weeks, or 49 years, rebuilding Jerusalem
VI. One week, or seven years, as a whole, proclaiming the new covenant (Jer 31:31-34 ) and confirming it with many Jews
VII. One week, or seven years, divided in the middle
1. The First Half
(1) Confirming the new covenant with many Jews for three and one-half years
(2) Finishing the transgression (Mat 23:35 )
(3) Messiah cut off by his people, and his people cut off by Messiah for a long time
(4) Making an end of sin
(5) Making reconciliation for iniquity
(6) Bringing in everlasting righteousness
(7) Sealing up vision and prophecy
(8) Causing sacrifice and oblation to cease, or the rejecting of the old, typical Temple and covenant (Mat 27:51 ; Col 2:14-17 ; Hebrews 7-10)
(9) Anointing the most holy, or the consecration of the new, antitypical temple (Act 2 ).
2. The Second Half-
Confirming the new covenant with many Jews for three and one-half years more, i.e., up to the times of the Gentiles, which is the terminus ad quern.
VIII. After the 70 weeks
(1) The coming prince Titus.
(2) The abomination of desolation.
(3) Destruction of the city and sanctuary as with a flood.
(4) The flood of wrath on the Jewish people till the fulness of the Gentiles.
QUESTIONS
1. What is the importance of Dan 9 ?
2. What is the first and simplest outline of it?
3. What is the date of Daniel’s prayer?
4. What, in general, the occasion and what is the meaning of “the books” in Dan 9:2 ?
5. What is the constituent elements of the occasion of this prayer?
6. Discuss Jeremiah’s seventy years,
7. Discuss the Levitical law of the land sabbath and its relation to this period.
8. Discuss the curse and oath of Moses relating to this prayer.
9. Discuss the atonement as it relates to this prayer.
10. Discuss Daniel’s previous visions as they relate to this prayer.
11. What the contents of the prayer? Discuss each item.
12. What the three elements that constitute the character of the answer to this prayer?
13. Cite four English versions and their variant punctuation of Dan 9:25 and state the effect on the exegesis.
14. What the notable things of this prophecy (Dan 9:24-27 )?
15. Give the critical (exegetical) analysis of the prophetic part of this chapter (Dan 9:24-27 ).
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
Dan 8:1 In the third year of the reign of king Belshazzar a vision appeared unto me, [even unto] me Daniel, after that which appeared unto me at the first.
Ver. 1. In the third year of the reign of king Belshazzar. ] Which was his last year, when Babylon was closely besieged: therefore Daniel was not now really at Shushan, but in vision only. Dan 8:2
A vision appeared unto me.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Daniel Chapter 8
There is a remarkable change which takes place at the point where we are now arrived, anti it may not be known to all readers of the Book of Daniel. The language in which the Spirit of God reveals this vision, and those that follow, is a different one from that in which He had conveyed the previous portions of the book. From the early part of Dan 2 up to the end of Dan 7 . the language was that of the Babylonian monarch – Chaldee: whereas from Dan 8 to the close, it is Hebrew – the ordinary language of the Old Testament. Now this was not without purpose. And I think the clear inference that we are to gather from it is this: that what particularly concerned the Gentile monarchies was given in the language of the first great Gentile Empire. They were immediately concerned in it: and, in fact, as we know, the first vision (of the image) was seen by the Gentile king himself – Nebuchadnezzar. From that to the end of Dan. vii. is in his own tongue.
But now we are about to enter upon visions which specially concern the Jews. Dan 8 , e.g., alludes to the sanctuary, to the holy people, to the daily sacrifice, and a number of other particulars, which would hardly have been intelligible to a Gentile, and which had no sort of interest for him. But although they may even be little in our eyes now, although it may seem only something of the past, concerning a people broken to atoms, scattered over the face of the earth, yet, nevertheless, it has a real and enduring interest in the mind of the Spirit. For the Jews are not done with yet. Far from it. The Jews have known, throughout their whole history, the misery of attempting to deserve the promises that were given to the fathers; and they have been allowed to work out the terrible experiment of the folly and ruin that necessarily follow man’s attempting to earn what the grace of God alone can bestow. That has been, and is, the whole secret of their past and present history. They were brought out from Egypt by the power of God; but at Sinai they undertook to do all that the Lord spoke unto them. They did not say one word about what God had promised. The Lord alluded to it. But in no way did they remind Him that they were a stiff-necked nation – a rebellious, unbelieving people. And when God proposed that they should obey Him, instead of acknowledging their utter incapacity, instead of throwing themselves only on His mercy, their answer betrayed, on the contrary, that boldness which always characterizes man in his natural state. “All that the Lord hath spoken,” say they, “will we do, and be obedient.” The result was that they did nothing that the Lord had said. They were disobedient at every turn, and God was obliged to deal with them as they deserved. No doubt there was divine goodness in it all; and every step even of their failure only brought out, through God’s grace, some type or shadow of the blessings that God will give them by-and-bye, when, cured by His mercy of this fatal mistake of the flesh, and being disciplined in suffering and trial and that fearful tribulation through which they are destined yet to pass, they will then fall back upon the Blessed One whom their fathers despised and crucified, and will own that the mercy of God alone can give them any blessing, and that it is His faithfulness which will accomplish all that He had spoken to their fathers. This we saw beginning to dawn in a particular way in the prophecies of Daniel. For although in the previous parts there had been types of it – Daniel himself in the den of lions – or as interpreter to the king – the three Hebrew children who refused to worship idols – all these things foreshadowed what God will work in the latter day for Israel, in a little seed that He will reserve for Himself. But they are not types so clear, but that many Christians now would think it fanciful to consider them as such at all. We are now about to find what none ought to gainsay for a moment. Yet there are many true Christians who take these prophecies as finding their only answer in what concerns the Christian Church. Such suppose that the little horn of Dan 7 is the papacy. And in this chapter many have been disposed to find Islamism, the scourge of the eastern world, as the papacy is of the west. Whatever may be the analogies that would readily occur to any thoughtful mind, and that I by no means denied as to the little horn in Dan 7 , I admit there are the same with regard to Mahommedanism in the east. But what I would desire to bring out clearly is the direct intention of the Spirit of God in these scriptures. It is all very well to find that there are seeds of evil germinating in the world, and that the horrors of the last days have their heralds – admonitory signs that arise ever and anon over the surface of the world, to show us what is coming. But in looking at the word of God, it is of importance to be divested of any desire to find the answer to prophecy in the past or present. The great thing is to go to it with an unbiassed mind, desiring nothing but to understand what God is teaching us. Therefore, whether it be about the past or the future, just as about the present, the chief requisite is, that we should be subject to God and to the word of His grace. I desire, in this spirit, to endeavour, as far as the Lord enables me, to explain the meaning of our chapter.
As in Dan 7 , so here, the vision was during the reign of Belshazzar; whereas the subsequent visions were after the power of Babylon was overthrown. But up to this time there was no judgment of Babylon. Notwithstanding, the very place where the new vision was seen prepares us for a certain change. It was in the east – still farther east – “at Shushan in the palace, which is in the province of Elam.” Elam is the Hebrew name for Persia, or one of the names, at any rate. “And I saw in a vision, and I was by the river of Ulai.” I only mention this to show that we have certain clues as to the bearing of the prophecy that follows. He lifts up his eyes and sees a ram – a well-known symbol, used in Persia itself, and very familiar in its monuments and public documents. “Behold, there stood before the river a ram which had two horns: and the two horns were high; but one was higher than the other, and the higher came up last.” Clearly the allusion is to the composite character of the Persian Empire. There were two elements in that empire, as distinguished from others – the Medish, which was the first, and the Persian, which was the younger element of the two. But the younger becomes in course of time the greater. Therefore it says that one horn was higher than the other, and the higher came up last. Although Darius the Mede takes the kingdom on the fall of Babylon, yet Cyrus the Persian is the one who acquires the supremacy in due time, and after that it is always the Persian that is more particularly mentioned. But still earlier even, in the language of the nobles to Darius, we find them saying, “the law of the Medes and Persians.” The ram had two horns.
“I saw the ram pushing westward, and northward, and southward” – that is, the direction of the various conquests of the Persian Empire – “so that no beasts might stand before him, neither was there any that could deliver out of his hand; but he did according to his will, and became great.” We find as to this how entirely all profane history is obliged to bow to the word of God. But we need not go farther than Scripture itself. Let any one read the books of Ezra, Nehemiah, etc., and he will see how wide and undisputed was that dominion. Even in profane history this was the term used about them – “the great king” – emphatically so about the Persian monarchy. It is manifest how entirely this goes along with the prophetical account given of them here. “He did according to his will, and became great.”
“And as I was considering, behold, an he-goat came from the west.” Now this was the first inroad that the west had ever made upon the eastern world. And nothing seemed more improbable, because the east was the cradle of the human race. It was in the east that man was put when he was first made. It was in the east that he began his second history in the world – I mean in the world after the flood. It was from this centre that the various races of men, after the Lord had confounded their language at Babel, spread themselves all over the world. It was also in the east only that there was any considerable development of civilization, for hundreds of years before the west had emerged from barbarism. Yet here we find, from this striking prophetical figure, that when the Persian kingdom was still without a rival, not declining, but in the very plenitude of its power, there suddenly comes from quite another quarter a power represented in the vision as a he-goat – a western adversary. And this power advances with the greatest possible swiftness; as it is said here, he “touched not the ground.” No person of the least openness to conviction could question for a moment what is meant, even supposing he had not a divine interpretation of it in the chapter. There was but one ancient empire that it could be conceived to set forth – the Grecian Empire – and the great horn in its head was clearly its first chief, Alexander. “And he came to the ram that had two horns, which I had seen standing before the river, and ran unto him in the fury of his power. And I saw him come close unto the ram, and he was moved with choler against him, and smote the ram, and brake his two horns.” Here we have the Spirit of God giving in a few words what all history confirms. A new empire should rise after the fall of the Babylonian, symbolized by the ram, peculiar in this, that it had two different peoples which composed its strength. This empire might go on in fulness of power for a certain time; but then, from another quarter, where there had been no kingdom of any note known before, comes a power of amazing swiftness in its progress, led on by a king of extraordinary courage and ambition. And this personage smites the Persian Empire so completely that “there was no power in the ram to stand before him, but he cast him down to the ground, and stamped upon him: and there was none that could deliver the ram out of his hand.” “Moved with choler” is said more particularly about the Greek Empire and Alexander. The Greeks had a ground of hatred against the Persians, which was not the case with the other empires. There was much of personal feeling in it, and this is admirably expressed by the word choler here. Why so? We do not read of that in the attacks of the Persians on the Babylonians, ferocious as they might be, or in those of the Romans upon the Greeks; but it was peculiarly true of this Greek inroad upon the Persian Empire. The Persians had before invaded Greece, and thus had roused the strongest feeling against themselves. This traditional resentment descended from father to son, so that the Greeks considered themselves the natural enemies of the Persians. Such was the provocation that the Persians had given to the Greeks, who were but a petty nation at that time, and who had not at all sought to extend their bounds beyond their own native country. Now the moment was come that this blow should be returned, and the Persians attacked in their own land: and the he-goat with this notable horn in its head comes, moved with choler, and smites the ram and breaks his two horns, casts him down to the ground and stamps upon him. Nothing can be clearer, nothing more exactly descriptive as giving an idea of the relative position of these two powers to one another. If you were to read history all your life, you could not have a more vivid picture of the Persian downfall than what the Spirit of God has furnished in a few lines.
In this case it was rather less than three hundred years from the time of Daniel till these great events took place – a time long enough to show the wonder of God’s perfect wisdom and the way in which He unveils the future to His people, but a comparatively short space in the history of the world; yet this is not His great object. The Spirit always looks forward to the close. He may introduce what is to be fulfilled in a comparatively brief time, but His main attention is directed to the end of this age, and not to those events that actually surround the parties of the world. God has a people that His heart is set upon: a people, it is true, who, through their own folly and want of leaning upon God, have been most feeble and failing, and who are, to this day, the scorn and by-word of the nations, according to the word of God. But whatever might be the apparent might of Persia, if not of Greece, and the importance of their controversies as filling up the history of the world, God thinks but little of them. He disposes of the records of centuries in a few words. The point to which God hastens forward might be small then in the eyes of the world, but being connected with the interests of His king, and His people, He goes on to the great events connected with them in the last days. This gives the key to the verses that follow. Their importance is because of their connection with Jewish history, and because they reflect what is to take place before the great day of the Lord come.
“Therefore the he-goat waxed very great: and when he was strong, the great horn was broken.” This was exactly the case with Alexander. He was cut off, while quite a young man, in the midst of his victories. “And for it came up four notable ones toward the four winds of heaven.” There was a certain time that elapsed after the death of Alexander, when his generals were squabbling together, and trying to set up a number of kingdoms; but the end of all was that there were four kingdoms formed out of the proper dominions of Greece. So that I do not question that the allusion here is to the well-known division of Alexander’s empire, into four kingdoms, which took place about three hundred years before Christ.
“And out of one of them came forth a little horn,” otherwise called in Scripture the king of the north. Being in the north, he pushes his dominions down “toward the south, and toward the east, and toward the pleasant land.” My reasons for so thinking, beyond that of the direction of his conquests (which shows where his own power lay, and the point from which he started), will more particularly appear when we come to verse 11. What we have here is the succession of these two empires – Persia first, and then Greece. For out of one of the fragments of the Grecian Empire there sprang a king that was afterwards to play a most important part in connection with the land and people of the Jews. This is the great point of the chapter.
Here then we find that this little horn “waxed great, even to the host of heaven; and it cast down some of the host and of the stars to the ground, and stamped upon them.” Thereby is meant, I apprehend, those that were in a position of honour and glory before the Jewish people. Thus, stars are used, in the New Testament, as the symbol of those who are set in a place of authority in the Church. Just so, I conceive, the “host of heaven” here alludes to persons that held a place of authority in the Jewish polity. It is the key-note to all this part of the prophecy. The importance of all that affects Israel is now more and more coming into view. Hence you find an expression used that may seem strong – “the host of heaven.” But we must not be surprised at this. God takes the utmost interest in His people. Bear in mind that this does not imply that His people were in a good state. On the contrary, in judging of failure, we must take into consideration the position the people occupied, and for which they are responsible. If you look at Christendom you must remember that all who profess the name of Christ, whether truly or falsely – every baptized person – every person that has come under the outward recognition of the name of Christ, is in the house of God. People fancy that it is only those who are really converted that have any moral obligations. This is a total mistake. A new kind of responsibility, no doubt, flows from the fact of conversion and the relationships of grace.
But there is a responsibility that involves a vast accession of guilt when men are in any place of privilege. This is a very solemn truth, and God attaches importance to it. Look at the Second Epistle to Timothy. God’s house is there compared to a great house among men, and in it there are vessels to dishonour as well as to honour. The former are not converted at all; they might be altogether bad people, but still they are said to be vessels in the house of God The Church, that which bears the name of Christ upon the earth, is always responsible to walk as the bride of Christ. Yet you cannot allude to such a privilege and responsibility as that, without seeing the utter ruin, and failure, and declension of what bears His name. And this is the practical importance of keeping in view the position which God has assigned us. We never can judge how low we have got till we see the place in which God first put us. Supposing I have to examine my ways as a Christian, I must bear in mind that a Christian is a man whose sins are blotted out; that he is a member of the body of Christ, and loved with the same love wherewith the Father loved the Son. Some are accustomed to think that, if a man is not a Jew or a Turk, or heathen, he must be a Christian. But when a believer hears that a Christian is one who is made a king and a priest to God – a purged worshipper, having no more conscience of sins – he becomes anxious, and feels that he has not one right or full idea of his own calling and responsibility. He then begins to find a different standard of judgment in Christ, to measure how he ought to feel, and work, and walk for God.
The same thing applies to Israel here. Those that held this place of responsible authority in Israel are alluded to here as the host and stars of heaven. They were put in a place of authority by God. For we must remember, in connection with Israel, that they are the people that, in the mind of God, have the first place upon the earth. They are the head, and the Gentiles the tail. This, I am aware, is a new thought to persons who are wont to look at Jews with an air of contemptuous pity, only judging of them by their present degraded condition. But, in order to judge rightly, we must look at things with God, we must feel with God; and God uses this strong language in regard to persons put of old in a position of outward authority among the Jews. Commentators have supposed that, because certain were spoken of in such exalted terms, Christians must be meant. But, as God’s nation, Israel held the first place in His mind in the government of the world. That is their calling; and “the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.” God will never give up the great thought, that He has called Israel into this place; and they are judged according to it. This vision is while the power of Babylon is not yet judged. It gives you a view of what will be realized in the last days with regard to Israel, before the power that began with Babylon has been completely set aside.
This little horn waxed great, and cast down some of the host and stars of heaven, and stamped upon them. That is, certain Jewish rulers are overthrown that were in this place of great authority; treating them with the utmost cruelty, and degrading them “Yea, he magnified himself even to the Prince of the host,” which, I suppose, means the Lord Himself. The marginal note is right in the next clause. ” From him the daily sacrifice was taken away.” This at once makes it all plain. On the contrary, it introduces the utmost confusion to take “by him” to mean the little horn, and then “the place of his sanctuary” to mean that of the Prince of the host. The person that was represented by this little horn is to magnify himself even to the Prince of the host. “And from him the daily sacrifice was taken away, and the place of his sanctuary was cast down. And an host was given him against the daily sacrifice by reason of transgression.” And then we go back to the little horn again. “And it cast down the truth to the ground; and it practised, and prospered.” In other words, the 11th verse and the first half of the 12th form a parenthesis. Then in the latter part of the twelfth verse we again have ” it,” which designates the little horn of verse 10. The “it” takes up the horn that was to appear and deal in a cruel way with the Jewish people, and with their rulers, in an aggravated form.
Then we have, as the prophet says, “one saint speaking, and another saint said unto that certain saint which spake, How long shall be the vision concerning the daily sacrifice and the transgression of desolation, to give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot? And he said unto me, Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.” I strongly suspect that, in the main, what we have here, save the portion which is marked parenthetically, has had a partial accomplishment in the past. We shall read of a personage in Dan 11 where the characteristics alluded to here, as marking this little horn, are still more minutely stated. He is called, in profane history, Antiochus Epiphanes, and was a particularly bad man. If you have read the Books of the Maccabees (which, though not Scripture, are in the main historically true, at least two of them), you will know that they describe this king of Syro-Macedonia, and show the dreadful feeling he cherished against Israel. He attempted to force heathen worship upon them, especially that of Jupiter Olympus; and he put to death all the Jews who resisted his designs, till at last, partly by the Romans and partly by the force and courage of the Maccabees themselves, he was repressed and defeated, and the temple was once more cleansed again, and the Jewish worship resumed. No doubt, this was the person meant historically by the little horn. But he shows the same kind of features, which will reappear in another great leader of the last days, and I think that this will be made evident from the last part of this chapter. For when the prophet is spoken to by the angel Gabriel, he says, “Understand, O son of man: for at the time of the end shall be the vision.”
The statement denotes, that what he is going to explain more particularly looks onward to that time. But it gives me the opportunity to repeat a remark which has been before made – that we are never to suppose that the explanations of a vision in Scripture are merely a repetition of what has preceded. They allude to the past, but they add fresh features not given before. This is particularly plain in the present case. The past portion of the vision (that which had already been seen by the prophet) has been in the main accomplished; whereas the explanatory part adds fresh information that looks onward to the last days. Nevertheless, there is an explanation in measure of what is gone before. But it is observable how frequently, in the explanations of the angel, the last days are brought before us.
“And he said” (verse 19), “Behold I will make thee know what shall be in the last end of the indignation: for at the time appointed the end shall be.” There can be no question, if we are at all familiar with the prophets, what this means. Take the first of them. There I find this very expression, “the indignation.” In the end of Isa 5 , and then in Isa 9 , Isa 10 , this word, “indignation,” is repeated over and over again. The prophet shows, that, in consequence of the idolatry of Israel, and especially of their kings, God’s indignation was roused against His people. He sends a chastening upon them. But, whatever the first effects of the chastening might be, the evil burst out again with fresh fury, as evil always does, unless it is put away. Therefore sounds forth that terrible word, “For all this His anger is not turned away; but His hand is stretched out still.” His wrath burns again and again. Then, in Dan. 10: 25, we find the Lord saying His “indignation shall cease.” But wherein? There is a personage brought forward there, called the Assyrian; and this scourge of Israel was set forth in measure by Sennacherib, the then king of Assyria. He was the first who was particularly mixed up with the affairs of Israel, or rather of Judah. And what do we learn? The Assyrian there is to be used as the rod of God’s anger; but when God has performed His whole work upon Mount Zion, and on Jerusalem – when He has allowed, as it were, the indignation to burn out, it will cease in the destruction of the Assyrian himself, because he forgot that he was merely a rod in the hands of the Lord. He flattered himself that it was all his own wisdom and might; but the Lord says, that He will deal with the rod itself, and destroy it. Accordingly, that very chapter shows us the indignation of the Lord ceasing in His destruction. The indignation is solely connected with His people Israel.
It is evident to me, that this confirms what was before said, that here we are upon Jewish ground. It is not a question of what popes or Moslems may do, nor about the inroads of the eastern or western apostasy. It concerns Israel – the last indignation of God against Israel. But it may be asked, Why is not the fourth empire introduced here? The reason is this: that while the dominion of these empires is taken away, upon which we have the successive rise of a new empire, yet the body remains in existence. Because it is out of the third empire, and not out of the fourth, was to rise this power that plays so important a part in the last days. So that we must remember, that the little horn of Dan 8 is an entirely distinct power from the little horn of Dan 7 . That of Dan 7 is the last leader of the Roman Empire, who arises out of the fourth empire when it is divided into ten kingdoms; whereas this power rises from the third empire, wherein there was a division into four parts – not into ten. Nothing can be more distinct. Although the chief dominion of the world has passed away from the third to the fourth empire; and although we have had in Sennacherib a representative of the third empire, yet in the last days there will also be an inheritor of the third empire, who will meddle with Israel in a particular way. As there will be a grand leader in the west, so there will also be one in the east, springing out of the Greek Empire. Further, we must remember, that, although being the Grecian Empire, it was west in comparison with Babylon and Palestine, it was east in comparison with Rome. This little horn we shall see more of afterwards.
In verse 20, the ram with two horns is explained to represent the kings of Media and Persia; and, in verse 21, “the rough goat is the king of Grecia: and the great horn that is between his eyes is the first king.” Then, in verse 22, we have the breaking up of the Grecian Empire; and in verse 23, it is added, “And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall stand up.” This, I think, does not refer to Antiochus Epiphanes, but to the person whom Antiochus typified. Mark the expression again, “In the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full.” “And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power”: a remarkable word, which is not said at all about the little horn of Dan 7 . There, I apprehend, it was by his own power. Satan might give him power, too; but in his own person he wielded the force of the Roman Empire. But, in the case of this ruler, though his power will be mighty, it will not be by his own power. He depends upon the strength given him by others. He will be the instrument of foreign policy and power, not his own. “And he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper, and practise, and destroy the mighty and the holy people.” That is, we find that he is principally and expressly mentioned in connection with the Jews as a people. Observe here, that you have not the saints of the Most High. What we find now is merely a figurative expression of the great men of the Jewish people, and this, as contrasted with Gentiles. There is no allusion to their character personally; that does not come into view in chapter 8.
This king shall meddle with them, and destroy the mighty and the holy people. “And through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand; and he shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many.” That is, he will take advantage of their being in a state of ease and unprepared for his wily encroachments. “He shall also stand up against the Prince of princes; but he shall be broken without hand.” He will be utterly helpless in this last struggle; as in another scripture it is said (Dan 11:45 ), “He shall come to his end, and none shall help him.”
Let me point out scriptures that will make the importance of this clearer than by confining ourselves to Dan 8 . Is there light from other passages as to who this personage is and what he will do? I answer, Yes. He is the same person that is spoken of, in various parts of the word of God, as the “Assyrian,” or “king of the north.” He is always described as the great foe of the Jews in the last days. The Jews at that time will be exposed to two evils. They will have an evil within in their own land – the Antichrist setting himself up as God in His temple; and they will have another evil from without – the Assyrian. He comes up as an enemy against them; and he is one also marked by a subtle policy. It is not merely by warlike power that he is distinguished. He is, no doubt, of fierce countenance, but he understands dark sentences. He will take the place of a great teacher, which would naturally have much influence over the Jewish mind; for they have always been a people given to research and intellectual speculations of all kinds. Of late years, the mass of them have been too much occupied with money-getting to pay much attention to these things; but there have been constant representatives of the intellectual class among the Jewish people. And over such the influence of this king will be immense, when they are re-established in their own land, and are becoming important again, as the objects of the dealings of God in the way of judgment. For the indignation will not have ceased. Thus it is that these two evils will afflict the Jews. The Antichrist, or the wilful king, will take the place of the true Messiah in the land of Israel. For, it is plain, that if any one assumes to be Messiah, it must be in the midst of the Jewish people, and in the land of the Jews; whereas the Assyrian is one who is opposed to them as an open enemy. This I take to be the king alluded to by the other prophets as the king of the north.
I would now refer to a few Scripture proofs, that the Assyrian and Antichrist are totally distinct and opposed powers. The Assyrian will be the enemy of the Antichrist: the one will be the great self-exalting man inside, and the other the leader of the enemies outside. Isa 10 gives us the first plain intimation that we have of him in the prophets. “Wherefore it shall come to pass that when the Lord hath performed His whole work upon Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, I will punish the fruit of the stout heart of the king of Assyria, and the glory of his high looks.” Many persons will tell me, the Assyrians are all gone; there is no such nation existing. But, I ask, has the Lord performed His whole work upon Mount Zion and on Jerusalem? No! Then the Assyrian is not all gone. The Lord tells me here, that when He shall have performed this whole work, He will punish the fruit of the stout heart of the king of Assyria. But the Jews are not in their land, and Jerusalem is still trodden down of the Gentiles. Who knows it not? But does it prove that the Jews are not to be in their land again, nor Jerusalem to be delivered from Gentile bondage? When the power of God gathers the Jews back into their own land, that same providence will bring out the representative of the Assyrian in the last days. And as the Assyrian was the first great enemy of Israel, so he is the chief one at the last. He it is that will come up for his judgment, when the Lord shall have performed His whole work upon Zion and Jerusalem. God has not performed the whole. He has performed a part of it, but His indignation still continues against Israel. This is the reason why they are not in their land. Even when they do get back, the indignation will still break out. There will be a return of the Jews in unbelief; and then will come this great crisis; and God will gather the scattered ones that remain, and set them in their own land; and the Assyrian will be judged. There is a certain great personage, typified by the Assyrian in the past, that will reappear in the last days. He is spoken of as this redoubtable king. He will govern in the very quarter where this little horn had its power – Turkey in Asia. Whether the Sultan will be the then possessor of these dominions, I do not pretend to say; but, whoever he may be, he is the person referred to by our prophet (Dan 11 ) as the king of the north. He will come down towards the pleasant land and will attack the Jews; but will afterwards be broken to pieces. “He shall come to his end, and none shall help him.”
Look again at Isa 14 . And what makes it remarkable is this: that, in the beginning of that chapter, you have the king of Babylon spoken of. (Ver. 4) “Take up this proverb against the king of Babylon, and say, How hath the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased!” The king of Babylon does not represent the Assyrian. Babylon and Assyria were two distinct powers. Babylon was only a little province when Assyria was a great empire. And when the Assyrian was in ruins, Babylon rose to an altogether new rank, as an imperial power.
Isa 14 opens by showing, that “the Lord will have mercy on Jacob, and will yet choose Israel, and set them in their own land: and the strangers shall be joined with them, and they shall cleave to the house of Jacob. And the people shall take them, and bring them to their place,” etc. It proves the intense interest that God will give the people of the world in seeing them back in their place. “And the house of Israel shall possess them in the land of the Lord for servants and handmaids.” The Gentiles, instead of being masters, will be glad to be servants in those days. “And they shall take them captives, whose captives they were; and they shall rule over their oppressors. And it shall come to pass in the day that the Lord shall give thee rest from thy sorrow …. that thou shalt take up this proverb against the king of Babylon, and say, How hath the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased! The Lord hath broken the staff of the wicked, and the sceptre of the rulers.” There evidently you have what has never yet been accomplished. No person with knowledge of Scripture can suppose that ever, from the time of Babylon’s supremacy, Israel had been in a position to take up such a proverb as that. The “times of the Gentiles” began with the Chaldean power being established over the Jews. And Jerusalem is, to this day, trodden down by the Gentiles. One power after another has taken possession of the city. Now, in these last days spoken of here, we have the Jews putting these Gentiles under them – making them their servants. And when that time comes, and not till then, they will take up this proverb, “How hath the oppressor ceased!” etc. And this prophetic strain looks at the king of Babylon, of whom Nebuchadnezzar was the type – the last holder of that same power that came in with Babylon. Who is this? The beast – the last inheritor of the power that commenced with the king of Babylon, whose strange destruction calls forth the joy and triumph of Israel. When the king of Babylon got this power, where was the Assyrian? Gone – broken. The empire of Babylon, that had been a little power, rose upon the ruins of the Assyrian. But mark, in this chapter, verse 24, “The Lord of hosts hath sworn, saying, Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand: that I will break the Assyrian in My land, and upon My mountains tread him under foot: then shall his yoke depart from off them, and his burden depart from off their shoulders. This is the purpose that is purposed upon the whole earth.” There, evidently, we have the fact, that when the day of Israel’s restoration comes, not only will they triumph in the fate of the king of Babylon, but the Lord will put down the Assyrian. How can this refer to the mere historical Assyrian of the past? He was already gone when Babylon came into power: so that he can only have been a type of a power yet to come. This shows that there will be two great powers in the latter day – the beast, represented by the king of Babylon, who at that time will be the enemy of the true-hearted Jews, though he purports to be the friend of the nation, that is, of the ungodly mass; as the Assyrian, on the contrary, will be the leader of the openly adverse coalition of the Gentiles against Israel.
Other scriptures prove the same thing. Thus in Isa 30 you will find the same two powers coming into view again. In verse 27 it is said, “Behold, the name of the Lord cometh from far, burning with His anger …. And the Lord shall cause His glorious voice to be heard, and shall show the lighting down of His arm …. For through the voice of the Lord shall the Assyrian be beaten down, which smote with a rod” – (evidently alluding to his being the instrument of the Lord’s chastening His people, as in Isa 10:5 ); “And in every place where the grounded staff shall pass, which the Lord shall lay upon him, it shall be with tabrets and harps: and in battles of shaking will he fight with it. For Tophet is ordained of old; yea, for the king it is prepared: He hath made it deep and large: the pile thereof is fire and much wood; the breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, shall kindle it.” This shows that it is not merely a judgment of the earth, but a deeper thing. Tophet, or the pit, is ordained of old. “For the king also ” is the true meaning of the next clause. Tophet is not merely for “the Assyrian,” but also for “the king.” There are two distinct personages referred to, as we saw also in Isa 14 . “The king” will be in the land of Israel, and will reign there, under the auspices of the inheritor of the power of Babylon in that day. He will there assume to be the true Messiah. Tophet is prepared for him – but also for the Assyrian. They will be both consigned to divine judgment. I need not refer to all the passages that refer to them; but you will find a great deal that is deeply interesting in Isaiah and other prophets as to “the king.”
But so far is it from being true, that Antichrist, or “the king,” most occupies the mind of God, that, on the contrary, the prophets speak far more of the Assyrian. Christians are not generally aware of the large extent of prophecy. One of the most important powers in it is hardly thought of by them. If you look at the minor prophets – for instance, Micah 5 – you will find an allusion to the same ruler, which is very plain. The chapter opens with a call. “Now gather thyself in troops, O daughter of troops: he hath laid siege against us; they shall smite the Judge of Israel with a rod upon the cheek.” There is the rejection of the Messiah. Then the second verse is a parenthesis, which shows us who the Judge of Israel is. “But thou Beth-lehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall He come forth unto Me that is to be ruler in Israel.” They may smite Him upon the cheek; but, after all, not only is He to be the Ruler, but He is the everlasting God, “whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.” Then he resumes, in connection with verse 1, “Therefore will He give them up, until the time that she which travaileth hath brought forth”: that is, till the great purpose of God come to pass about His people. “Then the remnant of his brethren shall return unto the children of Israel. And he shall stand and feed in the strength of the Lord…. And this man shall be the peace, when the Assyrian shall come into our land.” Mark that – “when the Assyrian shall come,” and “when he shall tread in our palaces”: a thing that never has been accomplished yet. When the Assyrian came of old into the land of old, it is clear there was no such fact as this Judge of Israel there, nor had Israel been given up at that time; but the Assyrian of that day was only the type of the great heir of the same name and power of the last days. And then will the Judge of Israel go forth on behalf of His people. The Judge, that was once smitten upon the cheek, will be received by His people, when God’s great purposes are accomplished. “This man shall be the peace, when the Assyrian shall come into our land.” Then we find (verse 6), “Thus shall He deliver us from the Assyrian, when he cometh into our land, and when he “readeth within our borders. And the remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many people as a dew from the Lord . . . and the remnant of Jacob shall be among the Gentiles in the midst of many people as a lion among the beasts of the forest, as a young lion among the flocks of sheep; who, if he go through, both “readeth down and feareth in pieces, and none can deliver.” So that it is very plain, that we have the encroachment of the Assyrian and his final overthrow in connection with the final deliverance of Israel.
I have endeavoured to show, that while Antiochus Epiphanes was the type of this Assyrian, yet that after all it was only in a very small part indeed that he meets the requirements of the prophecy; which, while it makes use of him, as a type, looks onward to the latter times of the indignation of God against Israel, when their foe comes up to receive his judgment from God. You will see how important it is to keep clearly in mind, that God has these great purposes about Israel, and that what man makes so much of – the episode of Popery now or of Mahommedanism – is passed over very slightly indeed. I acknowledge, that we find a certain measure of accomplishment in both, but the Church is never allowed by God to be an earthly people. When the Jews again come into view, then we have the importance of what touches them, and the Assyrian will come down from without, at the same time that there will be “the king” within: and both will fall under the unsparing judgment of God who will put down all enemies. And His people, purged by their trials, and looking to Jehovah-Jesus, will be thus made meet for the purposes of God in mercy, and goodness, and glory, throughout the world to come.
The Lord grant that we may know His purposes about us. We have nothing to do with this world, being strangers in it. We are entitled to read all these visions in the light of heaven. It is not said that Daniel did not understand them: the others did not. But, whatever may have been the case then, we, by the Holy Ghost, are entitled to understand these things now. And the Lord grant, that our minds may be heedful of what He puts before us as to our own path.
Fuente: William Kelly Major Works (New Testament)
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Dan 8:1-4
1In the third year of the reign of Belshazzar the king a vision appeared to me, Daniel, subsequent to the one which appeared to me previously. 2I looked in the vision, and while I was looking I was in the citadel of Susa, which is in the province of Elam; and I looked in the vision and I myself was beside the Ulai Canal. 3Then I lifted my eyes and looked, and behold, a ram which had two horns was standing in front of the canal. Now the two horns were long, but one was longer than the other, with the longer one coming up last. 4I saw the ram butting westward, northward, and southward, and no other beasts could stand before him nor was there anyone to rescue from his power, but he did as he pleased and magnified himself.
Dan 8:1 In the third year of the reign of Belshazzar This shows that the vision of chapter 8 came after a time span of two years from the vision of chapter 7. We do not know when or how long Belshazzar served as co-regent under his father, Nabonidus, before the fall of the Neo-Babylon Empire by the army of Cyrus II, Cyrus the Great (cf. Daniel 5). Chapter 8 restarts the Hebrew section of the Book of Daniel (i.e., Dan 1:1 to Dan 2:3; Dan 8:1 to Dan 12:13).
NASBpreviously
NKJVthe first time
NRSVat first
TEVI saw a second vision
NJBoriginally
This is literally at the first (BDB 321, e.g., Dan 9:21; Gen 13:3; 2Sa 21:9-10; 2Ki 17:25; Neh 11:17), which is idiomatic for the vision Daniel received earlier in Belshazzar’s reign (i.e., Daniel 7).
Dan 8:2 I was in the citadel of Susa Susa later became the capitol of the kingdom of Persia (cf. Neh 1:1); but at this time it was simply a large, fortified city in the province of Elam (i.e., east of the Tigris River, cf. Isa 22:6; Jer 49:34-39). It would later be called Shushan (cf. Neh 1:1; Est 1:2; Est 1:5). The Greek name was Susa.
Was Daniel physically in Susa, or was this part of the vision? He could have been in Susa on governmental business (cf. Dan 8:27). There seems to be no integral part of the vision linked to this locality.
Several visions in the Bible involve some type of mental or physical transport.
1. Ezekiel, from Babylon, to the temple in Jerusalem, Ezekiel 8 (cf. Eze 3:14; Eze 11:1; Eze 43:5)
2. Philip, in Gaza, taken to Azotus, Act 8:39-40
3. John, on Patmos, taken to heaven, Rev 4:2 (cf. Rev 17:3; Rev 21:10)
I looked in the vision, and I myself was Daniel sees himself in his vision for the first time.
Ulai Canal This was a 900 foot wide irrigation canal north of the city (BDB 19 I), which connected two rivers. The ancient versions in Greek, Aramaic, and Latin translate this rare Hebrew word canal or river (BDB 385) as Ulai gate, which would affect the translation of Dan 8:16.
Dan 8:3 a ram which had two horns This seems to refer to Medo-Persia (cf. Dan 8:20) and is analogous to the bear with one side lifted of Daniel 7 and the breast and arms of silver in chapter 2.
The horns are described by several features.
1. two horns
2. one longer than the other
3. the longer one came up after the other was in place
They probably represent the historical fact that Cyrus (1/2 Median) first conquered Media and then later became the king of Persia after the fall of Babylon. The two horns may also be parallel to the bear of chapter 7, raised on one side (showing the dominant kingdom of Persia in the Medo-Persian Empire (cf. Dan 8:20).
Dan 8:4 I saw the ram butting westward, northward and southward Many use this as parallel to the three ribs in the bear’s mouth, Dan 7:5, to describe the three directions of Medo-Persian conquest.
nor was there anyone to rescue from his power; but he did as he pleased and magnified himself There are several aspects to this phrase that characterize the arrogance of these Gentile kings and kingdoms (cf. Dan 8:8; Dan 8:11; Dan 8:25).
1. They thought no nation, army or god could thwart their desires (cf. Dan 2:21).
2. The essence of human rebellion is I did it my way (he did as he pleased, Dan 8:4).
3. The king magnified himself (like the little horns of chapters 7 and 8), which attracts God’s notice and judgment (this phrase could be understood as relating to the power and size of his kingdom as in Dan 8:9, but this Hebrew word (BDB 152) has a negative connotation in this chapter).
4. He did as he pleased, which is a recurrent theme (cf. Dan 5:19; Dan 11:3; Dan 11:16; Dan 11:36-37).
This prediction is a good place to remind all interpreters of the fuzzy nature of apocalyptic literature. The details are often for effect, not literal fulfillment (cf. D. Brent Sandy, Plowshares & Pruning Hooks: Rethinking the Language of Biblical Prophecy and Apocalyptic, pp. 117-128). In fact, Greece did repel Persia’s advance several times (490 B.C. and 480 B.C.). Apocalyptic literature cannot be interpreted or evaluated by the details. Often, which of the details have significance can only be known after the fulfillment in history!
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
In the third year: 426 B.C. (see App-50). Daniel being eighty-seven.
a vision. Like the vision in Dan 7, this also is complete in itself, but is necessary to contribute its proof of the unity of the book as a whole. This vision (and the rest of the book from here) is written in Hebrew; because its purpose is to show how Gentile dominion (of Dan 2) specially concerns and affects Israel.
after. Two years after. At the end of the Babylonian empire, for Belshazaar reigned little more than two years.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Chapter 8
Now two years later:
In the third year of the reign of king Belshazzar a vision appeared unto me, even as unto me Daniel, after that which appeared unto me at the first ( Dan 8:1 ).
A similar type of a vision.
But in this vision; it came to pass, and I saw, that I was in Shushan in the palace, which is in the province of Elam; and I saw in a vision, and I was by the river of Ulai. And then I lifted up my eyes, and I saw, behold, there stood before a river a ram that had two horns: and the two horns were high; but one was higher than the other, and the higher came up last ( Dan 8:2-3 ).
The Medo-Persian Empire represented by the two horns. The Persian Empire being the higher coming up last and was more powerful than the Median Empire.
And I saw the ram [that is, the Medo-Persian Empire], as it was pushing westward, and northward, southward; so that no beast might stand before him, neither was there any that could deliver out of his hand; and he did according to his will, and became great. And as I was considering, behold, a he goat came from the west on the face of the whole earth, touched not the ground: and the goat had a notable horn between his eyes ( Dan 8:4-5 ).
So he was watching this ram, the Medo-Persian Empire, as it was conquering, but suddenly there comes this goat out of the west, Greece, with a notable horn, Alexander the Great. And conquering so rapidly that the feet weren’t touching the ground. You read of the conquests of Alexander the Great, and it’s amazing how rapidly he was able to conquer the known world at that time.
And he came to the ram that had the two horns, which I had seen standing before the river, and he ran unto to him with a fury of his power. And I saw him come close unto the ram, and he was moved with choler against him, and he smote the ram, and broke his two horns: and there was no power in the ram to stand before him, but he cast him down to the ground, and stomped on him: and there was none that could deliver the ram out of his hand. Therefore the he goat waxed very great: and was strong, and the great horn was broken; and from it there came up four notable ones toward the four winds of heaven ( Dan 8:6-8 ).
A graphic prophecy, fabulous, interesting prophecy. How could Daniel know this except by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, that the great horn, Alexander would be broken in his youth. Thirty-two years old when he died. And the Grecian Empire passed on to the four generals, Syria, Antiochus Epiphanes, and then of course out of Egypt, Asia Minor, and Greece.
And out of one of them came forth a little horn [Antiochus Epiphanes], who waxed exceeding great, toward the south, and toward the east, and toward the pleasant land ( Dan 8:9 ).
Antiochus Epiphanes who moved against Egypt down toward the south and, of course, in passing from Syria into Egypt, he had to go through the land of Israel.
And it waxed great, even to the host of heaven; and it cast down some of the host ( Dan 8:10 )
Now we go from Antiochus Epiphanes to what he has a type of the antichrist and we go on now right to the antichrist. “And it waxed great even to the Host of Heaven,”
and it cast down some of the host of the stars to the ground, and stomped upon them. Yea, he magnified himself even to the prince of the host, and by him the daily sacrifice was taken away, and the place of his sanctuary was cast down. And a host was given him against the daily sacrifice by reason of transgression, and it cast down the truth to the ground; and it practiced, and prospered. Then I heard one saint speaking to another saint and said unto that certain saint which spake, How long shall be the vision concerning the daily sacrifice, and the transgression of desolation, to give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot? And he said unto me, Two thousand three hundred days; and then shall the sanctuary be cleansed ( Dan 8:10-14 ).
Now this, of course, is a prophecy concerning Antiochus Epiphanes. It does have a dual aspect in the fulfillment. But he’s talking about this profaning of the temple by Antiochus Epiphanes. When he came to Jerusalem to show his utter disregard for God and for their beliefs, he sacrificed a pig upon the holy altar there in Jerusalem. And he sought to turn the temple into a pagan temple. This created such a feeling of incense in the Jewish zealots, that Judas Maccabaeus gathered together a group of men and against insurmountable odds came to Jerusalem and defeated the Syrian army that was there.
Now this is where the Feast of Dedication comes from, Hanukkah. They wanted to re-establish the true worship, and interestingly enough, it was 2,300 days after Antiochus Epiphanes had profaned the temple, exactly as Daniel said. Twenty-three hundred days later, Judas Maccabaeus and these faithful zealots had come and they were wanting to re-institute the proper sacrifices and the temple worship again. But it was found that they had, of course, only enough holy anointing oil to last for one day, there in the candle set. And it took a period of about seven days to prepare this oil, or eight days, whatever it is. And so by divine miracle the one-day supply lasted until they were able to get the new supply of oil compounded and made for the lights there in the temple, and hence the Feast of Dedication, or Hanukkah, and even to the present day the lighting of the nine candles to symbolize the miraculous preservation of the oil in the lamps during the period that they were preparing new oil for them.
Jesus was in Jerusalem for Hanukkah, in John, chapter 10. It was, notice, in the middle of the winter. Hanukkah corresponds, of course… Hanukkah is tomorrow. In the celebration, Hanukkah comes this year on the twenty-first, that’s tomorrow, and so the Jews will be celebrating Hanukkah at the time that we are celebrating Christmas. The Feast of Dedication it was called. And it relates to, actually, the period of history of Judas Maccabaeus, but it is prophesied and predicted here the profaning of the temple by Antiochus Epiphanes and the resultant cleansing 2,300 days later by Judas Maccabaeus. And so the sanctuary was trodden down for the 2,300 days.
Now, there was a fellow by the name of Miller. He was a minister in the United States back in the 1800’s and he took and said, 2,300 days is actually 2,300 years. And he took the day that the temple was profaned and he added to that 2,300 years and he said Jesus is coming in the 2,300 years after the profaning of the temple and so he picked a date in 1844 that he had determined Christ was coming. And they got white robes and they went out in the hills there in Illinois and waited for Jesus to come. After a couple of weeks, they had sold everything, sold their houses, farms, everything else, so certain the Lord would come. And, of course, when the Lord didn’t come, the group that were known as the Millerites sort of disbanded. But then a lady came along, Ellen G. White, and said, “Oh Jesus at this point cleansed the sanctuary in the heavens. He entered into the sanctuary and cleansed it in the heavens.” And so she developed the Seventh Day Adventists and they follow her writings and so forth, which it turns out aren’t necessarily her writing. She was a plagiarist and has copied from other books and so forth, which some of their own scholars are discovering nowadays and exposing and getting kicked out of the Seventh Day Adventist. It’s quite a stir that’s going on in that particular denomination right now. But at any rate, they took the prophecy from here in Daniel, but there is no basis whatsoever to make the 2,300 days 2,300 years. That’s not good Biblical interpretation or exegesis, or whatever.
Now the Lord interprets the whole thing for Daniel.
And it came to pass when I, Daniel, had seen the vision, and sought for the meaning, then, behold, there stood before me the appearance of a man. And I heard a man’s voice between the banks of the Ulai which called, and said, Gabriel, make this man to understand the vision. So he [that is, Gabriel] came near to where I was standing ( Dan 8:15-17 ):
Gabriel is an interesting angel. He’s going to be a fun one to meet too. We’ll talk more about him next week as we meet him again in chapter 9. We meet him during the Christmas season. He’s the one that came to Mary and told her that she was to have a child. He came to Zacharias the priest and let him know that his wife Elizabeth would have the child, John the Baptist. He said, “How can I know this?” He said, “I’m Gabriel, I stand in the presence of God. Think I’d lie to you man?” And so he is a very interesting angel. And here he’s commanded, “Explain to the fellow what it’s all about.”
So he came near where I was standing: and I was afraid, and I fell on my face: but he said unto me, Understand, O son of man: for the time of the end shall be the vision ( Dan 8:17 ).
Now this vision is gonna to take you out to the time of the end.
Now as he was speaking with me, I was in a deep sleep on my face toward the ground: but he touched me, and set me upright. And he said, Behold, I will make you to know what shall be in the last end of the indignation: for at the time appointed the end shall be. Now the ram which you saw having two horns ( Dan 8:18-20 ),
We don’t need to question what is the ram, for he tells us.
they are the kings of Media and Persia. And the rough goat is the king of Greece ( Dan 8:20-21 ):
And, of course, this is when Greece was nothing.
and the great horn that is between his eyes is the first king ( Dan 8:21 ).
Or Alexander the Great. That is the first king during the time of its conquering. Philip, Alexander’s father did not conquer or begin any kind of a world conquest. That would be the first king in its conquering efforts.
Now that being broken ( Dan 8:22 ),
Alexander dying at thirty-two years,
whereas four stood up, there will be four kingdoms that will come out of the nation, but not in the power ( Dan 8:22 ).
Of Alexander the Great, which was true, and did happen.
And the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressions are come to a full, a king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall stand up. And his power shall be mighty ( Dan 8:23-24 ),
And this, of course, is referring now to the antichrist.
but not by his own power ( Dan 8:24 ):
We read in Rev 13:1-18 that this beast that rises out of the sea that Satan gives unto him his authority and his power. So this man of sin is going to arise; he’s going to be tremendously powerful, but not his own power. It will be Satan’s power that will be vested in him. All of the power of Satan will be given unto man, this man. “His power will be mighty, but not by his own power.”
and he shall destroy awesomely, and shall prosper, and practice, and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people ( Dan 8:24 ).
He’s gonna make war against Israel, ultimately.
And through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand; he shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace will he destroy many ( Dan 8:25 ):
He’s gonna come on with a program of peace. And be hailed, really, as the savior of the world.
he shall also stand up against the Prince of princes, but he will be broken without a hand ( Dan 8:25 ).
The brightness of the coming of Jesus Christ with the word that goes forth out of the mouth of Christ, the antichrist will be broken and destroyed without a hand touching him.
And the vision of the evening and the morning which was told is true: wherefore shut thou up the vision; for it shall be for many days ( Dan 8:26 ).
Just close it because it isn’t pronounced for the future.
And I Daniel fainted, and I was sick for certain days, and afterward I rose up, and I did the king’s business; and I was astonished at the vision, but none understood it ( Dan 8:27 ).
It was all before the fact. No one understood it, he just wrote it. And, of course, that’s an interesting thing. “Man, I don’t understand it. This is weird you know, but this is what it was, you know.” Now we look at it, we say, “Wow, that’s so clear! Man, that’s interesting how he could write with such clarity things that had not happened, you know.” But that’s because we’re looking at it from this standpoint and we can see where it was fulfilled. Whereas Daniel, “Who, Grecia? Man, that little area of Grecia? Well, it’s over there, you know. How can they ever destroy the Persian Empire?” And yet, in time it all was fulfilled.
As we get into the ninth chapter of the book of Daniel, I think that it does posses, really, the key to the understanding of all of prophecy. If you understand the ninth chapter of the book of Daniel, the whole subject of prophecy will become very clear to you. If you’re garbled on the ninth chapter of the book of prophecy, your whole prophetic picture will be garbled. The ninth chapter is the key to the understanding of the subject of prophecy. And so we’ll be spending a lot of time next Sunday night in the ninth chapter because I want you to get the key. Because if you can get this chapter then prophecy shouldn’t be a problem for you ever. Everything will fit together perfectly if you get this ninth chapter. So, next week we’ll finish the book of Daniel, Lord willing. But paying a special attention, special attention to the ninth chapter of this prophecy of Daniel.
May the Lord be with you in this hectic week. One of my little granddaughters was in a little ballet today at South Coast Plaza. She was Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Naturally, grandpa had to go up and see her do her little bit. But oh my, South Coast Plaza on the Sunday before Christmas, what a zoo. Was I ever glad I wasn’t there to buy anything, just to observe. And this week before Christmas is so oftentimes hectic. They’re out of what you were planning to get, you know. And now it throws a whole new dilemma on this problem of giving the gift. And may the Lord see you through the whole malaise. And may the giving of the gifts to each other become secondary as our relationship with God is enriched and becomes more meaningful. As we remember that God so loved the world that He gave His only Begotten Son. And thus, through it all, may the Lord be magnified and may you be drawn close to Him. And thus, may your Christmas be a very meaningful day of sharing God’s love, receiving God’s joy, and experiencing the peace of God which passes human understanding. May indeed you know the joy that He came to bring to this world. The peace on earth and the good will. “
Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary
Dan 8:1
Dan 8:1 In the thirdH7969 yearH8141 of the reignH4438 of kingH4428 BelshazzarH1112 a visionH2377 appearedH7200 untoH413 me, even unto meH589 Daniel,H1840 after thatH310 which appearedH7200 untoH413 me at the first.H8462
The Ram and the He Goat (Daniel Chapter 8)
Daniel’s last vision two years earlier dealt with the four great world empires ending with the coming of Christ under the Roman Empire. Starting with the Babylonian Empire, then moving forward until Daniel saw a great many disturbing details about the fourth beast in his dream.
The earlier revelation was in the form of a dream while this one was a vision he had while wide awake. It is important to note that Daniel was an elderly man at this point in his life. Assuming he was 13 years old at the time of his deportation from Jerusalem to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar, he was at this time about 69 to 70 years of age.
Daniel lived through, to date, one of the most turbulent periods in Israelite history. Nebuchadnezzar finally destroyed Jerusalem because her kings kept rebelling against his authority. The temple was utterly destroyed and burned in order to retrieve the gold from its stonework. The vessels of worship were all carried away with many of them destroyed. Daniel personally saw his home city of Jerusalem besieged and overthrown. He then saw the Babylonian Empire conqyered and taken into the Medo-Persian Empire. How frightening and unsettling it must be to have one’s country overthrown. Even if it is a wicked and cruel one, there is no guarantee that the next one will be any better. Add to that experience having one’s place of worship for centuries utterly destroyed. We must keep in mind here that we today are blessed beyond measure. The death of Jesus Christ made it possible for Christians today to worship God anywhere. His great sacrifice on behalf of man replaced the sacrifices under the Levitical system of worship. The Israelites had to sacrifice in the temple. Without the temple, there could be no animal sacrifices.
And if that were not enough, it is almost certain that Daniel lived the lonely life of a eunuch under the royal service of whatever king reigned over the land at the time. His faithfulness to God is all the more notable in consideration of the conditions under which he lived his whole life.
Daniel’s lifelong ambition was to see his people recommit themselves to God and to return to their homeland and rebuild the temple and resume the worship of the one true and living God. Daniel was chosen by God to prophecy of the coming of the one kingdom which would never fall and to prophecy of the coming king who would reign forever, the Messiah, Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
Before the coming of the Messiah, Daniel’s people had more hardship to endure. The turmoil of falling nations and rise of cruel leaders was not over. While Daniel was blessed to see the prophecies of the coming Messiah and His kingdom, he also had to bear the burden of the prophecies of the afflictions of his countrymen at the hands of evil and cruel tyrants yet to come. Daniel knew these prophecies were real. He knew the things he saw in these visions would come to pass. He had seen the visions of the things that would befall the kings of Babylon, interpreted them and saw them come to pass. Daniel was not living under any allusion that his people would avert the disasters that awaited them in this next vision.
Before going to the text we should pause to reflect on the power of divine prophecy in the validation of our faith. Man cannot see into the future. At best, man can only predict future happenings based on the observation of circumstances and conditions visible at the time. But only God can look down the road of time and reveal with 100% accuracy events that will happen centuries in the future. Only God can name the names of future kingdoms and leaders such as Cyrus. And those then, and today, who would deny the existence of God must explain how someone like Daniel could prophecy with such startling accuracy the rise of men like Alexander the Great and Antiochus IV who, centuries later, would rise to power and perform exactly as revealed, those things written of by the prophets. These visions of Daniel are called prophecy, but that word suggests a prediction of sorts. Prophecy is more than that. Prophecy, first and foremost is a divine and irrefutable demonstration of the power of God, and secondly is quite simply the foretelling of events which are certain. Prophecy is not in any way a prediction of future events, it is the revelation of events that are sure and that will come to pass.
Dan 8:1
In the third year of the reign of king Belshazzar a vision appeared unto me, even unto me Daniel, after that which appeared unto me at the first.
About two years after the first revelation that appeared to Daniel, he received another one. This happened in the third year of king Belshazzar who was the son and co-regent of his father Nabonidus. Daniel had this vision in about 550 BC. History records that Cyrus the great established the Persian Empire and began reigning in 550 BC. Belshazzar was made co-regent of the Babylonian Empire in 553 BC, just three years after Cyrus came to power. The Lydian and the Babylonian Empires were overthrown and fell to the Medo-Persian Empire in about 539 BC. Egypt fell to the Medo-Persian Empire under the rule of the son of Cyrus, Cambyses, in 525 BC.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Two years later, in the third year of king Belshazzar’s reign, another vision came to Daniel. It was of a ram with two horns pushing westward, northward, and southward. As Daniel watched, a he goat attacked the ram, and overcame him, and magnified himself. Four horns appeared, out of one of which came another, which grew until it had broken down the sanctuary. A voice of a holy one inquired how long this would continue, and the answer was given to Daniel.
Again he pondered the vision, and sought to understand it, and an interpretation was given to him. The two- horned ram represented the united power of Media and Persia, the rough he goat was the king of Greece. Against him a fierce one would arise, succeeding through policy, but ultimately being broken without hand.
Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible
Gods Sanctuary Dishonored
Dan 8:1-14
Shushan was the lily palace. There, by the river Ulai, the prophet beheld in vision the attack which would subsequently be made on the Medo-Persian kingdom by Alexander. The great horn which was broken is, of course, Alexander, and the four notable ones are his four generals, who after his death divided up his conquests. The little horn is referred by many to Antiochus, whose conflict with the Maccabees was one of the most significant in later Jewish history. Others refer it to Mohammed and his followers, who have reigned over the same regions. In this case the little horn would stand for the Eastern apostasy as distinguished from the Western, which is said to be represented by the little horn of the fourth beast, Dan 7:8. The Books of the Maccabees, included in the Apocrypha, should be studied to understand more clearly what is intended in Dan 8:11-12. The explanation of these obscure verses is also given in Dan 8:24-25. Antiochus was obsessed with hatred against the spiritual worship of the Jews, and their refusal to admit his image into the Temple. He stayed their sacrifices, though they were restored for a season, to be finally suspended during the present age. The day for a year system, Dan 8:14, may refer to the desolations of the Turkish or Ottoman empire, of which Antiochus was the representative.
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary
Chapter Eight The Grecian Little Horn
In beginning this chapter I call your attention to a most interesting fact regarding the structure of the book of Daniel. It was originally written in two languages. The first chapter and verses 1-3 of chapter 2 are in Hebrew. But from 2:4 to the end of chapter 7, the language employed is Chaldean, or Aramaic. The balance of the book is in Hebrew. There seems to be a very simple and yet significant reason for this. The first section was for the special help and encouragement of the faithful among the scattered Jews, so it was written in their own language. But in the second section, God is tracing out the course of the times of the Gentiles. He led Daniel to write the record of it in the popular language of the day so the Chaldeans might read it and profit from it.
The portion of the book of Daniel beginning with the eighth chapter and going on to the end concerns the Jews in a very special way, so it was written in Hebrew, as was the first part. It is of importance to see the different applications of each of these sections. God has nothing to say about the course of the church of this dispensation either in Daniel or elsewhere in the prophetic books. He is giving us the truth both in regard to Judah and Israel and to the Gentiles as such. If we fail to observe this our apprehension of Scripture will be in confusion. The principle is a simple one, but if kept in mind will aid greatly to a proper understanding of the Word of God. When in the prophetic books we read of Judah, or Zion, or Jerusalem, we are not to suppose the church is meant. Judah means Judah, Zion means Zion, Jerusalem means Jerusalem, Israel means Israel, and the Gentiles have no part in what is written concerning these. The church, which is the body of Christ, is something very different. There are three, not merely two, classes of people in the world today-all contemplated in Scripture. Give none offence, says the apostle Paul, neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the church of God (1Co 10:32). These are the three classes. If the various passages of Scripture referring to each are rightly divided and not all mixed up together in the mind of the reader, he will get a proper understanding of what is commonly called dispensational truth. It is nothing more nor less than giving to each dispensation, or period of Gods special dealings with men, the portions that apply particularly to each.
In studying the Chaldean part of Daniel (2:4-7:28) we have noticed how the omniscient God has traced for us the course of the great empires of this world. We have had outlined for our learning their rise, progress, decline, and fall, emphasizing the truth that righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people (Pro 14:34). All this was written in the language spoken by the Gentiles at that time. But now we are to be largely occupied with that race long-despised and hated, but ever watched over by Jehovah-His covenant people of old, beloved for the fathers sakes, no matter how great their failure and sin. That is why the last part of the book is written in Hebrew. It is true that we will still read of some of these world powers (we are largely occupied with two of them in this chapter), but this is only to clear the ground for better understanding of Gods plan for the future of the Jewish nation.
A careful study of the book of Revelation will show you that it is very similar in structure to the book of Daniel. The first part (Revelation 1-3) is devoted to the prophetic history of the church. From chapter 4 to 11:18 we see the judgments that are to fall on apostate Christendom and the powers connected with it. Their history is traced right on down to the end, closing with the time of the dead that they should be judged. But the Lord had said to John, Thou must prophesy again (10:11), so he begins to take things up once more from the 12th chapter on, but it is all connected with Gods earthly people, the nation of Israel. Thus the first part of Revelation has chiefly to do with the course of the world as such; it turns the divine searchlight on the great movements among the nations. But the second half has to do with the same people (the Jews) that we have before us in the last part of Daniel. As remarked in the previous chapter, the one book dovetails into the other. Daniel cannot be understood apart from the book of the Revelation; and Revelation itself is in many places only intelligible because of what had previously been made known to the prophet in Babylon. Let us remember then that our present chapter is the first of the Hebrew section; the previous chapters were in Aramaic and especially concerned the Gentiles.
Dan 8:1 shows us that two years elapsed between the visions of chapter 7 and 8. In the third year of the reign of King Belshazzar Daniel was given the vision of the ram and the he-goat. Either physically, or in spirit, he was in the palace in the province of Elam by the river Ulai. Elam was the ancient name of the highlands east of Babylon, stretching from India to the Persian Gulf. It was in this very region that Cyrus was to obtain his first great victories. It was fitting that in his vision Daniel should be in the land soon to be completely dominated by the Persians because that which he saw had largely to do with Persia in her early triumphs and subsequent defeat.
He tells us that he lifted up his eyes:
And saw, and, behold, there stood before the river a ram which had two horns: and the two horns were high; but one was higher than the other, and the higher came up last. I saw the ram pushing westward, and northward, and southward; so that no beasts might stand before him, neither was there any that could deliver out of his hand; but he did according to his will, and became great (3-4).
In verse 15 we have the interpreting angel drawing near, whose mission it was to explain the meaning of the vision. We will notice each part separately, connecting it with the interpretation given. In verses 19-20, the angel says: Behold, I will make thee know what shall be in the last end of the indignation: for at the time appointed the end shall be. The ram which thou sawest having two horns are the kings of Media and Persia. Thus we are not left to form our own judgment as to what the ram might represent. We are distinctly told by the angel that the ram stands for the same dominion as the breast and arms of silver in Nebuchadnezzars great image and the bear that was lifted up on one side in the previous vision. It is as though God would give us symbol after symbol to impress on our minds the events to follow one another on the earth prior to the establishment of the kingdom of His Son. The fact that we are given three symbolic images to teach us this lesson reminds us that a three-fold cord is not quickly broken (Ecc 4:12).
Remember that when Daniel had the vision Babylon was still the supreme power, though already in its decline. But Daniel was given this revelation as to the ram of Persia when no human mind could possibly have predicted the place it was to take in the affairs of men. It is rather interesting to know that, according to standard authorities, the ram was the symbol of Persia; a picture of one was carried on her banners before her armies. The two horns, the higher of which came up last, clearly connect with the bear lifting itself up on one side. They illustrate the fact that the Medo-Persian empire was composed of two nations-the ancient and venerable kingdom of Media and the then modern kingdom of Persia. Later, after the confederation, Persia became by far the more powerful of the two; thus the horn that came up last was higher. Daniel saw this ram pushing westward, northward, and southward; this indicates exactly the course of Persian conquest. The armies of Cyrus did not turn eastward to conquer those barbarous tribes, but pressed toward the Mediterranean and Black seas, and the Persian Gulf. They continued their conquests until all western Asia and Egypt were subject to them.
While Daniel was considering what the ram could mean, he saw a he-goat come from the west and cross the face of the whole earth. It ran so swiftly that it did not touch the ground. This goat had a notable horn between his eyes. He came to the ram that had the two horns and charged him in the fury of his power. Daniel vividly described the terrific onslaught:
And I saw him come close unto the ram, and he was moved with choler against him, and smote the ram, and brake his two horns: and there was no power in the ram to stand before him, but he cast him down to the ground, and stamped upon him: and there was none that could deliver the ram out of his hand (7).
Again we do not need to try to discern the meaning of the vision; God Himself has revealed it through His angel. The interpretation is given in verse 21: The rough goat is the king of Grecia: and the great horn that is between his eyes is the first king.
At the time that Daniel prophesied, Greece consisted of a number of independent and often warring states, yet bound together by ancestral ties. It remained for Alexander in, commonly called the Great, the remarkably gifted son of Philip of Macedon, to consolidate these separate kingdoms into one loyal, united power destined to rule the world for a season. The vision in Daniel 8, as all those in the book, exactly agrees with later history. I do not want to occupy you too much with history; a knowledge of human records is certainly not necessary to enable one to understand the Word of God. On the other hand nothing is gained by ignorance; faith is confirmed and God is glorified when we see how the wonderful exactness of His holy Word is witnessed to by the annals of uninspired men.
The first thing of note I would have you observe is this: the he-goat came from the west. According to history, we know that an altogether new thing appeared in the rise and progress of Alexander the Great. Previous to that time, power had always risen up in the east and reached out toward the west. The East was the cradle of the human race, and the most ancient civilizations existed there. The nations of the East thought of all the rest of the world, especially the distant lands of the west, as barbarians, for whom they entertained a haughty contempt. But the he-goat came from the despised west with great anger. In great passion, he did not touch the ground in the swiftness and the fury of his onslaught. This is a fitting symbol of the whirlwind campaign of the army of the west headed by its intrepid commander. The overrunning of Asia by Alexander was not merely to gratify his ambition for world empire; it was also to pay off old scores. The Greeks had never forgotten the disgrace and shame of earlier Persian conquests. Nor could they forgive the Persians for their unsuccessful attack, under Xerxes, on the Hellenic states. For years they had brooded over these things and had nursed the desire for a bloody and triumphant revenge; at last they realized that the time had come to gratify their passion. Therefore, it was with more than usual alacrity that they sprang to arms at Alexanders beck and call. They rushed on the Persian hosts in angry mood, eager to settle up these old scores and execute vengeance on their ancient enemies. So Daniel saw the he-goat moved with anger, and charging the ram in the fury of his power. By this terrific attack, the ram was cast to the ground and his two horns broken. All this was fulfilled when Alexander met the armies of the last Darius and completely defeated them. By this he became ruler of the world.
But Daniel continued: The he goat waxed very great: and when he was strong, the great horn was broken; and for it came up four notable ones toward the four winds of heaven (8). In the interpretation, the angel explained that the great horn was the first king of Grecia; then he says: Now that being broken, whereas four stood up for it, four kingdoms shall stand up out of the nation, but not in his power (22). Alexanders day of power was brief; his early death testified to his inability to control his appetites and passions. Thus the great horn was broken.
None of his own house succeeded Alexander. After his untimely decease, his dominions were divided among his four leading generals: Ptolemy, who was acknowledged as king of Egypt and the adjacent countries; Seleucas, who took Syria and Asia Minor; Lysimachus, who had the sovereignty of Thrace (modern-day Turkey) and the contiguous territory; and Cassander, to whom fell Macedonia and all Greece. Thus was the empire divided and there was never again a masterhand commanding until the Roman conquest in the last century before Christ.
Two of these divisions occupy a large place in prophecy; but Scripture never again deals with Thrace, and only once directly with Greece (Zec 9:13). But Syria and Egypt are the powers known in the book of Daniel as the king of the north and the king of the south. Unless otherwise specified, directions in Scripture are always to be understood as having Jerusalem as a center; so, when the Bible speaks of the north and the south, it is north or south of Jerusalem. Unless this is kept in mind, one may easily become confused. Up until fifty years before the coming of the Lord Jesus, Syria and Egypt existed as independent powers, with the land of Palestine between them. The Holy Land thus became a veritable battleground for the opposing armies, and was torn by dissension for over two hundred years. The wretched history of those two centuries of horror is given us prophetically in Daniel 11. We will take them up in detail when we come to consider that portion of the book.
The chief reason for introducing all this was that we might be enlightened in regard to one who is to play a very important part in the time of the end; he is destined to arise out of the Syrian division of Alexanders empire. For the present and ever since the Roman conquest, the goat with the four horns has been apparently destroyed. But just as the Roman empire is to be revived in the last days, so we learn that two of the four horns of the divided Grecian dominion will reappear on the prophetic map in that time of trial. Out of one of them that little horn will arise who will be the bitter enemy of the returned Jews in that day.
And out of one of them came forth a little horn, which waxed exceeding great, toward the south, and toward the east, and toward the pleasant land. And it waxed great, even to the host of heaven; and it cast down some of the host and of the stars to the ground, and stamped upon them. Yea, he magnified himself even to the prince of the host, and by him the daily sacrifice was taken away, and the place of his sanctuary was cast down. And an host was given him against the daily sacrifice by reason of transgression, and it cast down the truth to the ground; and it practised and prospered (8:9-12).
I do not question for a moment that all this has had a fulfillment in the atrocities of that monster of wickedness, Antiochus Epiphanes. His persecutions of the Jews and desecration of the temple are described in these verses. But a comparison with the interpretation of the vision makes it equally clear to my mind that there remains another and more complete fulfillment yet to take place.
Many confuse the little horn here spoken of with the little horn of chapter seven. But we have already noticed that he who rises up in the western ten-horned kingdom is the same as the beast of Revelation 13 and 17. He is a Roman, not a Grecian offshoot. In this chapter of Daniel we see one arising out of the old kingdom of Seleucas-a king of the north, not of the west. Antiochus in his bloodthirsty career was the type of one who will be Jerusalems bitter enemy in the time of the Lords indignation. For centuries the Turks were in possession of the lands once dominated by Seleucas. The future king of the north will in all likelihood be the fierce leader of whatever power controls Turkey in Asia at that time.
The Roman little horn will be an apostate Christian in league with the personal antichrist; he will take unbelieving Israel under his wing so long as it suits his purposes. The Grecian little horn is likely an utter infidel, the successor to Mohammed, motivated by inveterate hatred to the Jews, and probably the bitter foe of the future emperor of the west. The angel tells Daniel:
In the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall stand up. And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power: and he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper, and practise, and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people. And through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand; and he shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many: he shall also stand up against the Prince of princes; but he shall be broken without hand (8:23-25).
It is evident that much that is written in these verses cannot possibly apply to Antiochus. He answers quite fully to the vision, but he does not meet the requirements of the interpretation. In the first place, the prophecy is to have its complete accomplishment when the transgressors are come to the full. This expression might refer to the ripening of iniquity in ancient Syria except that the kingdom was not destroyed on the death of Epiphanes; it would have been if its sins had reached the limit set by the moral Governor of the universe. It seems far more likely that the expression refers to the time of the end, when the whole world will be ripe for the judgment of God.
This interpretation also agrees with the angels words, I will make thee know what shall be in the last end of the indignation (19); this is undoubtedly the end of the times of the Gentiles. In that time, then, this predicted little horn will stand as a man of great intelligence and diplomacy; but we read that his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power (24). Now these words could hardly be applied to the little horn of the past; he reigned as an independent monarch, prosecuting his purposes as his own will dictated, until in measure thwarted by the interference of Rome. But there is a leader who occupies a large place in prophecy; he is called the Assyrian by Isaiah and will be Israels enemy in the last days. He will be destroyed by the personal appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ. Isaiah connects Israels blessing and restoration with his downfall. He seems clearly to be the same as the little horn depicted here, for he too apparently relies on some other ally. The power that will back him is prophesied of in Ezekiel 38. Then again the little horn is to stand up against the Prince of princes and be broken without hands. The Prince of princes can be none other than the Messiah; consequently these words were not fulfilled in the life and death of Antiochus. But they point us on to the time of the end, when Messiah Himself will appear in person on behalf of oppressed Israel and will overthrow the Assyrian.
What is said of the little horn as an individual is largely applicable to the Ottoman empire as a whole. Fierce and relentless, it has ever been the enemy of Judaism, and has existed for centuries, not because of any inherent power of its own, but because of the jealousies of the nations of Europe. Were the Turk driven out of Constantinople, all Europe would be thrown into war, each great power anxious to possess the dominions over which the Crescent now floats. Hence the abominable horrors of Armenian and Jewish massacres are permitted by civilized and so-called Christian nations because they do not dare to interfere, lest by so doing they jeopardize the peace of the world. (Editors note: This was written before World War I began. See the Preface.) It is said of the little horn that he shall cause craft to prosper, and by peace shall destroy many. This too has been characteristic of the unspeakable Turk, especially in his dealings with the Jews. The monotheism of Islam naturally appeals to the Jew; and the false prophet himself made marked advances to the seed of Israel, hoping thereby to win them over to Islam. But behind all the fair words and goodly promises of the sultans, the poison and the sword have ever lurked. The little horn of the latter times will embody in himself the spirit of the Ottoman empire.
But we have not yet finished with the vision. Daniel said:
Then I heard one saint speaking, and another saint said unto that certain saint which spake, How long shall be the vision concerning the daily sacrifice, and the transgression of desolation, to give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot? And he said unto me, Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed (13-14).
The word for days is really evening-mornings and refers, not to lengthened periods, but clearly and distinctly to twenty-four-hour days. It is a time-prophecy that has to do with the defilement of the temple by Antiochus. From the time that he polluted the sanctuary by sacrificing a sow on the altar and setting up a statue of Jupiter in the holiest of all, twenty-three hundred literal days elapsed until it was again purified and dedicated to the service of Jehovah. As if to warn us of the danger of allegorizing this period, the angel said to Daniel, The vision of the evening and the morning which was told is true: wherefore shut thou up the vision; for it shall be for many days (26).
It was the failure to apprehend this that led the Millerites into their great blunder in the early part of the last century. The same error has blinded their successors, the Seventh-Day Adventists and resulted in the blasphemous sanctuary-theory which they hold. According to them, the Lord Jesus never entered the holiest until a.d. 1844, being twenty-three hundred year-days from the time when Cyrus issued the decree to build the temple. But it is all utterly unsupported by Scripture. The twenty-three hundred days have long since been fulfilled in the history of Daniels people, the Jews. It was literally fulfilled after the desecration of the holy places by the Syrian tyrant. There is no hint that there remains another twenty-three hundred days to be fulfilled in the future, though the characters of the little horn of the vision and the last great Assyrian of Isa 14:24-27, are so very much alike. The latter will undoubtedly be a man of great ability, but cunning, crafty, and deceitful-a worthy successor to the Ottoman rulers of the past. But he is to be broken in Immanuels land, and all his army will be destroyed on the mountains of Israel, when he dares to stand up against the Prince of princes. This Prince will come forth in glorious majesty for the deliverance of the faithful remnant whose hearts will cling to Jehovah in that dreadful time of Jacobs trouble. Already we can see events shaping themselves for the fulfillment of these things. The end cannot be far off. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame (Rev 16:15).
The effect of the vision on Daniel was that he fainted and was sick several days. Afterward, he said, I rose up, and did the kings business; and I was astonished at the vision, but none understood it (27). The centuries since have borne witness to the truth of much of it, and the days to come will demonstrate the rest. May our hearts be so impressed by these things that we too are deeply exercised before God about them. May we be found in a very real sense doing the Kings business while we wait for His personal return from Heaven!
Nor would I close without once more warning the Christless to flee from the wrath to come. The black and ominous clouds of doom are gathering over this poor world. Soon the lightning of wrath, the thunder of judgment, and the storm of vengeance will break forth. How unspeakably sad will be your condition if exposed to the full fury of the tempest of divine indignation without Christ and without refuge! Trust Him now while grace is offered to each sinful soul; else What wilt thou say when he shall punish thee? (Jer 13:21)
Fuente: Commentaries on the New Testament and Prophets
CHAPTER 8 The Ram and the He-Goat
1. The vision (Dan 8:1-14)
2. The interpretation of the vision (Dan 8:15-27)
Dan 8:1-14. Beginning with this chapter to the end of the book prophecy will lead us mostly upon Jewish ground. While some of these prophecies were fulfilled in the past, most of them are related to the future when the great end fulfillment takes place before the coming of the Son of Man in the clouds of heaven to receive the kingdom. The phrases the latter times, the time of the end, in the last end of the indignation, appear several times in these chapters. These phrases describe the same period of time mentioned in the seventh chapter, a time, times and dividing of times; the 1,260 days or 42 months in the book of Revelation. It is the great tribulation which is recorded in the last chapter of this book.
The time and place of the vision in this chapter are given in the beginning. The ram, according to divine interpretation (Dan 8:15, etc.), is the Medo-Persian monarchy–the silver kingdom, the kingdom also typified by the bear. The he-goat with a notable horn is the Graeco- Macedonian monarchy and the notable horn is Alexander the Great. In 334 B. C., Alexander leaped like a swift he-goat across the Hellespont and fought his successful battles, then pushed on to the banks of the Indus and the Nile and then onward to Shushan. The great battles of the Granicus, Issus and Arbella were fought, and he stamped the power of Persia and its King, Darius Codomannus, to the ground. He conquered rapidly Syria, Phoenicia, Cyprus, Tyre, Gaza, Egypt, Babylonia, Persia. In 329 he conquered Bactria, crossed the Oxus and Jaxaitis and defeated the Scythians. And thus he stamped upon the ram after having broken its horns. But when the he goat had waxed very great, the great horn was broken. This predicted the early and sudden death of Alexander the Great. He died after a reign of 12 years and eight months, after a career of drunkenness and debauchery in 323 B.C. He died when he was but 32 years old. Then four notable ones sprang up in the place of the broken horn. This too has been fulfilled, for the empire of Alexander was divided into four parts. Four of the great generals of Alexander made the division namely, Cassander, Lysimachus, Seleucus and Ptolemy. The four great divisions were, Syria, Egypt, Macedonia and Asia Minor.
Then a little horn appeared out of one of these divisions; it sprung up out of Syria. This little horn is of course not the little horn mentioned in the previous chapter, for the little horn in Dan 7:1-28 has its place in connection with the fourth beast (Rome), while this one comes from a division of the third beast, the Graeco-Macedonian monarchy.
History does not leave us in doubt of how and when this great prophetic vision was fulfilled. This little horn is the eighth king of the Seleucid dynasty. He is known by the name of Antiochus Epiphanes; after his wild and wicked deeds he was called Epiphanes, the madman. Long before he invaded the pleasant land (Israels land), Daniel saw what he would do. He conquered Jerusalem. He took away the daily sacrifice in the temple and offered a swine and swines blood upon the altar. He introduced idol worship, devastated the whole land and killed some 100,000 Jews.
In Dan 8:13-14 is an angelic conversation. The 2,300 days (literal days) cover just about the period of time during which Antiochus did his wicked deeds. When they were ended Judas Maccabaeus cleansed the sanctuary about December 25, 165 B.C.
We believe these 2,300 days are therefore literal days and have found their literal fulfillment in the dreadful days of this wicked king from the north. There is no other meaning attached to these days and the foolish speculations that these days are years, etc., lacks scriptural foundation altogether. Such views and fanciful interpretations bring the study of prophecy into disrepute. We have special reference to the Seventh Day Adventist delusion. They teach the abominable falsehood that the Lord Jesus Christ did not enter into the Holiest till the year 1844 had been reached, because this is according to their reckoning 2,300 years after Cyrus had issued the command to build the temple. That this is a denial of the gospel itself and satanic is self-evident.
Dan 8:15-27. Gabriel is the interpreter of the whole vision. It should be carefully studied. It points to a future fulfillment.
Gabriel told Daniel that the vision has a special meaning for the time of the end. Four different expressions are used to denote the time of the final fulfillment of the vision: (1) The time of the end (Dan 8:17); (2) The last end of the indignation (Dan 8:19); (3) The latter time of their kingdom (Dan 8:23); (4) When the transgressors are come to the full (Dan 8:23).
Once more, at the close of the age, before the Lord comes in visible glory, in the days of the great tribulation, the time of Jacobs trouble, an invasion from the north takes place. Israels land will once more undergo the horrors of a devastation, foreshadowed by Antiochus Epiphanes. The king of the north, as he is also called in Isaiahs prophecy, the Assyrian, will do this work. For details and other prophecies relating to this coming event see our exposition of Daniel, pages 102-118.
Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)
vision
The eighth chapter gives details concerning the second and third world-kingdoms: the silver and brass kingdoms of Daniel 2; the bear and leopard kingdoms of Daniel 7, viz., the Medo-Persian and Macedonian kingdoms of history. At the time of this vision (Dan 8:1) the first monarchy was nearing its end. Belshazzar was the last king of that monarchy.
third year About B.C. 530.
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
Cir, am 3451, bc 553
the third: Dan 7:1
me Daniel: Dan 8:15, Dan 7:15, Dan 7:28, Dan 9:2, Dan 10:2, Dan 10:7, Dan 11:4
Reciprocal: Eze 1:1 – I saw Dan 5:13 – Art thou
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
WE NOW LEAVE that portion of the prophecy that deals specially with the Gentile powers; and so, as we begin chapter 8, the language of the original reverts to Hebrew from the Chaldee. The vision recorded in this chapter, is dated about two years after the one we have just considered. Though Gentile powers are still in view, the main point seems to be their action in regard to Jerusalem with its sanctuary and sacrifices. It came to Daniel not when he was in Babylon but rather in Shushan; that is, in a palace of the Medo-Persian empire, which overthrew the Babylonian, and it must have been just before that overthrow took place.
Thus before the Medo-Persian empire triumphed, its own overthrow was pictured in the mind of Daniel, since the ram with two horns clearly represented that power. The Persian horn became the dominant one, but it came up last. For a time the ram was irresistible, doing its own will and pushing in all directions.
The he goat of verse Dan 8:5 is clearly the Grecian power, and the ‘notable horn’ was a prediction of Alexander the Great, who, moving with great swiftness, crushed the Persian power. Then verse Dan 8:8 predicted the sudden end of Alexander and the division of his newly acquired dominion into four lesser ones.
Thus far, we have been given an enlarged view of what was compressed into verse Dan 8:6 of the previous chapter; but in Dan 8:9 we pass into predictions that are new, and that deal with happenings that would spring out of the dissolution of the Grecian empire rather than the affairs of the last days, until we come to the interpretation of the vision, which is given to us in verses Dan 8:19-26. As is frequently the case, the interpretation travels beyond the details given in the vision.
The predictions, as to ‘the little horn’ and his doings, are distinct from those of the ‘little horn’, of Dan 7:1-28. That was to spring out of the fourth empire in its last days: this, out of one of the four parts of the divided third empire. This striking individual was to glorify himself and reach towards the south and east and ‘the pleasant land’, which doubtless is Palestine. The ‘stars’ he would cast down, we understand to be shining servants of God. He would take away the daily sacrifice and tread the sanctuary down, dishonouring the ‘prince of the host’. This was all fulfilled in the career of that evil man, known to history as Antiochus Epiphanes. He defiled the temple and tried to force heathen worship on the Jews, which led to the revolt under the Maccabees, and a time of much tribulation, until at last after the 2,300 evenings and mornings the sanctuary was cleansed. We believe that many details given in Heb 11:35-38, may refer to saints of those days.
When Daniel was made to understand the vision, his thoughts were soon carried on to ‘what shall be in the last end of the indignation’, as verse Dan 8:19 says. Verses Dan 8:20-22, summarize the history we have considered, and then verse Dan 8:23 carries us on to the latter days, when two things will happen. First, transgressors will have ‘come to the full’. Second, a king, marked by bold power and clever understanding, will rise up from the same quarter. This is indicated by the fact that he arises in the latter time of ‘their kingdom’; that is, from the north region of Syria, whence came Antiochus of evil memory, who sprang from Seleucus, one of Alexander’s generals, who became king of the north, while Ptolemy and his successors became kings of the south, or Egypt.
This coming king of the north, like Antiochus, will attempt to ‘destroy the mighty and the holy people’; that is, the Israel of the last days. His doings are described in verses Dan 8:24-25, but at the last he will ‘stand up against the Prince of princes’, and as a result be broken ‘without hand’; that is, we understand, without human instrumentality. Here then, we have that ‘king of the north’, or ‘the Assyrian’, that figures so largely in other Old Testament prophecies, who will be destroyed by the Lord Jesus Himself when He appears in His glory, and His feet stand on the Mount of Olives, as Zechariah has predicted in the opening of Zec 14:1-21.
It is important, we believe, to keep clear in our minds the distinction between this ‘little horn’, proceeding from the third beast, and the one on the fourth beast in Dan 7:1-28, who is supported by the false Messiah in Jerusalem, according to Rev 13:1-18; and that means of course that he is in league with the Jew and Jerusalem, whereas this northern king is violently against them. Both, though probably not at the same moment, will be destroyed by the glorious appearing of Christ.
Daniel was assured that this vision was true and certain, though what it portrayed was distant from his days. Though the terror of it caused him to faint, he understood it not. It was to be as a sealed book in his day. It is an open vision to us, since we have the light of the New Testament and are indwelt by the Spirit of God. We may well exclaim, ‘Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift’!
Fuente: F. B. Hole’s Old and New Testaments Commentary
Dan 8:1. Again the Lord gave to Daniel a prophecy, but this time it was in the form of a vision instead of a dream. It was shown to him two years after the dream of the preceding chapter. Another difference in this chapter is that, whereas the other considered the four world empires, this will be about the MedoPersian and Grecian.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
THE RAM AND THE HE-GOAT
How much later was this vision than the preceding? Where was it revealed to Daniel (Dan 8:2)? It is important to keep in mind that it covers the same ground as the preceding, except that the story begins, not with Babylons supremacy, but that of the Medes and Persians represented by the ram (Dan 8:3), though in the former vision by the bear. The higher horn of the ram is the Persian half of the empire. The united empire made conquests west, north and south, but in its western campaigns it awakened the triumphing opposition of the Greeks represented by the he-goat, whose notable horn was Alexander the Great (Dan 8:5-7). In the former vision this empire was represented by the leopard.
Verse 8 foreshadows the death of Alexander, and the division of the Grecian empire into four parts Syria, Egypt, Macedonia, Asia Minor, under the rule respectively of four of Alexanders generals, Cassander, Lysimachus, Seleucus and Ptolemy.
ANTIOCHUS EPIPHANES (Dan 8:9-14)
A little horn, as in the preceding vision, comes out from these four (Dan 8:9), whose power developed towards the south and east, and especially the pleasant land, the land of Israel. The little horn is the eighth of the dynasty of Seleucus on the Syrian throne, whose name was Antiochus Epiphanes, although he was sometimes called Epimanes, or the madman, because of his life and deeds.
As an oppressor of the Jews he fulfilled the prophecy in Dan 8:10-12, as will be seen by the book of Maccabees. The host of heaven and the stars are types of Israel, especially their leaders the princes, priests, rabbis of the period, which was about 171 B.C.
The prince of the host (Dan 8:11) is doubtless the Lord Himself, from whom the daily sacrifice was taken away, and whose sanctuary was polluted. Indeed, when Antiochus conquered Jerusalem he caused a sow to be sacrificed on the altar, and its broth sprinkled over the entire temple. He changed the feast of tabernacles into the feast of Bacchus, and greatly corrupted the Jewish youth who were spared from the sword, one hundred thousand of whom were massacred.
The time during which this continued is revealed by a conversation between two angels which Daniel in vision hears (Dan 8:13-14). The 2,300 days is sometimes identified by going back from the time of Judas Maccabees victory, or rather the date when he cleansed the sanctuary from its abomination, about December 25, 165 B.C. to 171 B.C., the date of the interference of Antiochus. This Antiochus is a forerunner, or an approximate fulfillment of that little horn spoken of in the preceding vision, and again in the closing part of the present one.
THE INSPIRED INTERPRETATION (Dan 8:15-27)
The angel Gabriel here appears for the first time, and in the likeness of a man (Dan 8:15-16), but it is evident that the interpretation he is to give refers not so much to Antiochus and his deeds as to the greater than he who shall arise at the time of the end (5:17), the same one possibly, and the same period as are referred to in the preceding vision. The time of the end is identified in Dan 8:19 as the last end of the indignation, an expression frequently met with in the Old Testament, and meaning Gods indignation against Israel on account of her disobedience and apostasy, an indignation which will be poured out upon her at the end of this age.
This being of whom Antiochus is the forerunner or approximate fulfillment, and who is possibly the same as in the preceding vision, is further described in Dan 8:23-25. What language in Dan 8:23 shows that he appears at the end of the age? How are his spirit and character described in the same verse? How does the next verse suggest superhuman agency in his case? And his animus towards Israel? Express the deceitfulness indicated in Dan 8:25, in your own words. What language in this verse shows his opposition to the Messiah personally? How is his destruction expressed? (Compare 2Th 2:8.) It may be objected that this being cannot be the same as the little horn of the preceding vision, because that is seen to come up out of the ten horns; in other words, out of the Roman Empire or the last form of Gentile dominion on the earth, while this comes up out of the four, or the Grecian Empire, which is next to the last. But a simple answer is that he may come up out of that part of the Roman Empire which was originally the Grecian; in other words, that his rise may be expected in that quarter of the world and from such antecedents.
Nevertheless some think the little horn of this chapter, who shall arise at the end, is a different person from the one in chapter 7. They hold that he of chapter 7 will be the head of the revived Roman Empire, but that he of chapter 8 is another king of the north, who is to be the foe of Israel, and at the same time the enemy of the head of the revived Roman Empire. This may be true, and we would not dogmatize in a matter of such uncertainty, but we think the view suggested here of the identity of the two is the simpler and more practical one to hold awaiting light.
QUESTIONS
1. How far is the scope of this vision identical with the preceding?
2. Name the geographic divisions of the Grecian Empire and their respective rulers.
3. Historically, who is meant by the little horn?
4. Give as much as you can of the history of Antiochus Epiphanes.
5. Of whom is he a type or forerunner?
6. What is meant by the time of the end?
7. What objection might be raised as to the identity of the little horn in chapter 7 with that of chapter 8?
8. How might it be met?
Fuente: James Gray’s Concise Bible Commentary
Dan 8:1. In the third year of King Belshazzar Daniels former vision of the four great beasts, representing the four great empires of the world, took place in the first year of Belshazzar; now, in the third year of that kings reign, he had another vision, which chiefly respected two of those empires. Thus God showed the same things to Daniel at different times, and under different symbols; doubtless in order that they might be more deeply impressed on his mind, and that he might more distinctly understand them in all their circumstances. We find God acting in the same manner with some of the other prophets, particularly Ezekiel, to whom he showed the destruction of Jerusalem by a great many different types, or symbols. This vision was communicated to Daniel about the year before Christ 553, according to Usher, Prideaux, and other chronologers.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Dan 8:2. At Shushan in the palace. Some think that Daniel was now ambassador at the Persian court. The Ulai or Eulus, is a great and navigable river which watered Ecbatana, capital of Media, and then, after a course of two hundred and fifty miles, washed Shushan, or the lily, so called from the beauty of the country. Daniels residence here may farther account for Belshazzars imperfect knowledge of him. But was not Shushan at this time subject to Babylon; and Persepolis capital of the Persian kingdom? Daniel was here in office on the kings business, as in Dan 8:26.
Dan 8:3. A ram which had two horns. Spanheim, a very learned protestant divine of Geneva, a friend of archbishop Ushers, has observed, that keren signifies horn, crown, power, and splendour. He quotes Grotius also to say, that the horn is everywhere put for a kingdom, or for kings, in the old testament. He took the idea from the Chaldaic paraphrase which reads, kingdom.A ram, we are told, was the ensign of Persia; and a ram, says Sir John Chardin, was placed on the pillars of Persepolis with two horns, the one higher than the other. We find also that the prophetic style generally employs the ensigns and emblems used by the nations of which it speaks. But our enlightened Joseph Mede conjectures that if the letter gnain be sounded as aleph, Allam for Elam, it gives the ancient name of Persia. Isa 21:2. It sounds like aries, or ram, and is derived from the same root.
Dan 8:4. I saw the ram pushing westward, and northward, and southward. This ram with two unequal horns designates the unequal kingdoms of Persia and ELamentations The fall of Babylon, and the march of Cyrus from Ecbatana to Lidya, has already been noticed in Isa 13:14., and Ezra 1. Afterwards the kings of Persia became masters of all western Asia, Egypt, and the isles of Greece; and their wars were coval with their power.
Dan 8:5-6. Behold, a he-goat came from the west. Alexander the great, in full career of conquest, came to the Persian ram, standing by the river Granicus, and smote him in three successive battles, and finally pursued him to the city of Arbela in Palestine. After that, the hero met with little obstruction till he had planted his standard on the walls of Babylon. It is calculated that six hundred thousand Persians fell in those wars, fighting against little more than thirty thousand Greeks.
Dan 8:8. When he was strong the great horn was broken. Alexander died on the consummation of his conquests at Babylon, either by poison or by the visitation of God. Afterwards came up four notable ones, the horns of the four kingdoms into which the Greek empire was divided on his death, as stated in Dan 6:6.
Dan 8:13. How long shall be the vision. How long shall the sanctuary and the host be trodden underfoot? Host, or the army, as Montanus reads. Both here and at Dan 8:9, it is rendered dynasty, by Theodotian; that is, the supreme government. The Vulgate reads, fortitude; but the English, following Munster, read pleasant land. Hence this little horn was to tread down the sanctuary, and the government, or power, or land of Israel, for the space of the days mentioned in the next verse.
Dan 8:14. Unto two thousand and three hundred days, or till evening and morning days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed. The Vatican, the Alexandrine, the Complute, and Alduss copy of the Greek, read two thousand three hundred days; but Theodotian reads two thousand four hundred. In the Hebrew, as the very learned Joseph Scaliger remarks, the points are neglected in Montanus, who reads, elphim one thousand, instead of alphagim two thousand. All antiquity is against Montanuss reading as erroneous. Jerome reads, two thousand three hundred; but he mentions some copies which read two thousand two hundred days. Perhaps there was a providence in these variations of the reading to hide from us the time of the cleansing of the sanctuary, and the holy land. This little horn was applied by many of the ancients to Antiochus king of Syria, called Epiphanes, who took Jerusalem, profaned the temple, put forty thousand, or some say, eighty thousand jews to the sword, and made forty thousand of them slaves. This monster of cruelty and lasciviousness set up the image of Jupiter Olympus in the Lords house, and forced the jews by all kinds of tortures to live as the gentiles, and to sacrifice to the idols. Hence the Greeks ceased to call him Epiphanes, which signifies illustrious, and called him Epimanes; that is, furious, or mad.
This man, having run his course, was, as is usual, infatuated to destruction. He heard of the treasures in the temple of Diana at Elymais in Persia, and thought to make himself master of them; but his army was defeated. On his return he heard of the defeat of his generals by Mattathias and his sons, the Maccabees. So excessive was his grief that he died on the road, in all the horrors which can possibly seize a guilty mind. Thus Judas Maccabeus purified the temple, and restored the principality till the time of Herod the Ascalonite. The end of this unhappy man may teach civil governments not to meddle with religion. Bishop Newton has proved by many arguments, and decisive ones indeed, that though Josephus, and many jews and christians assert Antiochus to be the little horn, that Jerome is right in supposing him to be merely a type of antichrist; for he did not in any sense oppress the jews two thousand three hundred days, and he fought by his own power as king of Syria; but the kings of the earth were to give their power and strength to antichrist or the beast. Rev 17:13.
This little horn magnified himself against the prince of the host. Now, Antiochus only profaned the temple, and twice sold the high priesthood; but the Romans utterly destroyed the temple, and under Adrian sought to annihilate the jews, after having aided in the crucifixion of the Lord Christ. Besides, it is said, Dan 7:26, they shall take away his dominion, to consume, and to destroy it unto the end. Though therefore the affairs of Antiochus came to a gloomy close, yet his crown passed to his heirs; nor was it removed till the Romans fully took possession of the country by force of arms; but the antichrist was to be broken without hands: Dan 8:25. Hence the great body of protestants do most seriously regard the papal hierarchy, which sprang as a horn out of the Roman power, as the antichrist, or the armillium improbum, the wicked one who was so revealed, sitting in the temple of God, and speaking as though he was a god. See notes on Isa 11:4, 2Th 2:3. The papal hierarchy of dignified clergymen have magnified themselves above all, and impiously taken both heaven and earth into their own hands.
Dan 8:16. Gabriel, that is, the great power of God, make this man to understand the vision. See on Luk 1:19.
Dan 8:26. Shut up the vision, for it shall be for many days. These words, many days, refer to our own times, to which the two thousand three hundred or two thousand four hundred days or years refer. Therefore the vision must be shut up in the bosom of the church, as a reserve of consolation in the latter day. God has begun already his great work of cleansing the sanctuary. Luther removed idols from the protestant world, and the keen satires of an infidel philosophy are chasing them, with a cloud of superstitions, from the papists. The bible is obtaining its rank as the light of the world, and christian powers are suppressing simony in the sanctuary, that the church may be filled with holy men.This subject is resumed in another vision, chapter the twelfth.
REFLECTIONS.
When God has any great work to do in the earth, he takes peculiar delight in calling his friends to attest his providence and grace. The measure of Babylon was full; yea, the wickedness overflowed, and God was about to give the world into the hands of other lords. Hence that certain Saint, that Holy One, for whom no name that mortals can give is worthy, awaited Daniel in devotion and solitude, to show him in miniature a grand scheme of providence to the end of the ages of wickedness. He who said, shall I hide from Abraham the thing that I do, still delights to interest the attention of the church, that man may be happy in the contemplation of his glorious works. He enshrouded the soul of the venerable prophet with the skirts of his glory, that wrapped in the spirit, he might glance on futurity in the light of the Lord. While Belshazzar, giddy with a crown, and intoxicated with pride, wantoned in crimes and in the nightly opiates of pleasure, not aware of the gathering stolen, Daniel saw the young Cyrus as a ram uniting on his head the two horns of Persia and Media. He pushed westward, and arranged the Armenians in close alliance, and was accompanied by Tygranes and twenty four thousand men to the war. He pushed northward towards the Black sea, and thence southward to Sardis, where he found all the treasures which Crsus had hoarded, as on purpose to accelerate the fall of Babylon.
Next, Daniel saw the he-goat, or Alexander the great, come from Greece, skipping, running, and leaping against the descendants of the ram, after the Persian empire had flourished about two hundred and twenty eight years. This furious goat smote the ram, and brake his two horns, and cast him to the ground.
Next, not in Alexanders time, but out of the western part of his empire, sprung up the little horn at Rome, a weak kingdom at first, but afterwards it became lord of the world. Likewise, out of the same Rome, arose the more dangerous horn of the spiritual antichrist, or empire within the ten kingdoms of Europe. Both these powers have magnified themselves against the prince of the host; and temporal Rome has magnified itself against the pleasant land, and the people of the Most High, whose country remains a desolation to the present day. We may lastly observe, that the study of the visions and prophecies concerning the empires of the earth and the kingdom of Christ, are of the greatest advantage and benefit to the church. They show us the care of providence. Gods perfect foresight and knowledge of his own affairs, and the confidence which the faithful may repose in his providence and grace. Why then should we be terrified at war and political tempests. God rides on the storm, and holds the winds in his fist; he is doing his great work; he is causing the wicked to punish one another, to purify his church, and to protect the faithful. Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! Hence also the study of prophecy is often of peculiar advantage to the church. The venerable Daniel, who kept his house during the carnage in Babylon, lived to show Cyrus the prophecies of Isaiah respecting himself, where he was mentioned by name, and to procure the emancipation of the jews with great presents. Isaiah 44, 45. In like manner, Jaddua, highpriest of Jerusalem, met Alexander coming against the city; but on showing this prophecy of the he-goat, he pacified his anger, and obtained the mildest treatment for the jews.
Lastly, our Saviours resumption of this prophecy, saved the christians from perishing in Jerusalem. He had warned his disciples, when they saw the abomination which maketh desolate standing in the holy place; not the temple only, but the pleasant land, as in Dan 8:9; and the same word is translated elsewhere a goodly heritage, a goodly portion; he had warned them, I say, that they should flee to the mountains. May we therefore wait in confidence for the cleansing of the sanctuary, and not be too presuming on prophetic calculations. In due time the Lord will fill the whole earth with his glory, and put all his enemies under his feet.
Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Daniel 8. The Vision of the Ram and the He-goat.This chapter gives an account of another vision which came to Daniel in Shushan. Near the river Ulai a ram with two horns is seen pushing invincibly westward and northward and southward. Suddenly from the W. a he-goat appears, attacks the ram, and breaks his horns. Then, the he-goat magnified himself exceedingly. The notable horn between his eyes is broken and four other horns spring up to take its place. Out of these four horns proceeded another, a little horn, which moved towards the E. and the S. and attacked the land of Palestine, exalting itself against God, desecrating the Temple, and abolishing the sacrifices for 2300 days.
The interpretation of the vision which is given by Gabriel to Daniel is exceptionally clear, and leaves no manner of doubt that it refers to the events of the Maccabean age. The ram with the two horns represents the two kingdoms of Media and Persia. The he-goat is the Greek Empire, the first horn representing Alexander the Great, and the four later horns the four kingdoms into which the empire subsequently split up. The little horn is Antiochus Epiphanes, a king of fierce countenance and understanding dark sentences. The attack on the Jewish religion is clearly described, and the promise given that God will deliver His people.
Dan 8:1. Belshazzar: Dan 5:1*.at the first: refers to the vision of the four beasts in Daniel 7, which is dated two years previously.
Dan 8:2. Shushan the palace: the citadel of Susa (Neh 1:1, Est 1:2; Est 1:5). Susa was the capital of Elam, and was situated on the river Eulus, directly N. of the head of the Persian Gulf. It is described by Xenophon as the winter residence of the Persian kings. Its citadel was renowned for its strength. As the city was destroyed in the reign of Assurbanipal (668626 B.C.) and not restored till the time of Darius Hystaspis (521485 B.C.) there is some doubt as to whether the citadel was in existence at the date implied by this chapter.Elam: the province or district E. of the lower Tigris and N. of the Persian Gulf (Jer 49:34-39*).Ulai: Eulus (modern Karn), one of the three rivers which flows into the Persian Gulf from the mountains on the N. Driver, however, thinks it was probably a large artificial canal connecting two of these rivers.
Dan 8:3. the ram: a symbol of power and energy (Eze 39:18). Of the two horns the lower represents the Median Empire, the higher which came up last the Persian.
Dan 8:5. he-goaf: used metaphorically to describe a ruler or leader (Isa 14:9 (mg.), Isa 34:6; Eze 39:18), representing here the Greek Empire.over the face: an exaggerated but pointed description of Alexanders conquests.touched not the ground: such was the speed of the he-goat that he seemed to be flying without touching the ground, a reference to the rapidity of Alexanders triumphant progress.notable horn: Alexander the Great.
Dan 8:7 describes the downfall of the Persian Empire before Alexander.
Dan 8:8. great horn was broken: refers to Alexanders tragic death at the summit of his power in 323 B.C.four notable horns: i.e. the four kingdoms into which the Greek Empire was divided: (a) Egypt, (b) Asia Minor, (c) Syria and Babylonia, (d) Macedonia and Greece (cf. Dan 11:4).
Dan 8:9. a little horn: Antiochus Epiphanes (175164 B.C.) whose oppression caused the Maccabean rising.glorious land: Palestine (cf. Dan 11:16; Dan 11:41).
Dan 8:10. the host of heaven: the stars. This attack on the heavenly bodies is a symbolical way of describing Antiochus attempt to destroy the Jewish religion.
Dan 8:11. the prince of the host: i.e. God.burnt offering: refers to Antiochus desecration of the Temple and the suppression of the sacrifices.
Dan 8:12. and the host was given: the meaning of this clause is very uncertain. Driver renders, A host was appointed against the continual burnt offering with transgression, and explains it thus: Antiochus had recourse to violence and set up an armed garrison to suppress the sacred rites of the Jews. RV means, A host (i.e. an army of Israelites) was given over to it (the horn, i.e. Antiochus) together with the burnt offering through transgression (i.e. the apostasy of the disloyal Jews).
Dan 8:14. two thousand three hundred: 1150 days. The desecration of the altar lasted from the 15th of Chislew 168 B.C. to the 25th of Chislew 165 B.C., or 3 years and 10 days. The number of days reckoned in a Jewish year at this time is uncertain, but the range of possibilities for this period lies between 1090 and 1132 days, and in any case the number falls short of the prophesied 1150. Some scholars think that the 1150 days is reckoned not from the actual destruction of the altar, but from the date of the edict of Antiochus. Others hold that the Book was written within this period, and that the 1150 days or 3 years was, therefore, a genuine prediction, which was only approximately fulfilled.
Dan 8:17. the vision belongeth to the end: to the writer the events of the Maccabean rising were to be followed by the end of the world.
Dan 8:19. in the latter time of the indignation: when the wrath of God shall be manifest at the end of time.
Dan 8:20-22. Dan 8:3-9*.
Dan 8:23. understanding dark sentences: a master of dissimulation, able to conceal his meaning under ambiguous words (Driver).
Dan 8:24. not by his own power: i.e. either (a) by the permission of God, or (b) by his intrigues.
Dan 8:25. broken without hand: by act of God.
Dan 8:26. shut up the vision: keep it secret.
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
THE RAM AND THE HE-GOAT
Daniel 8
The first seven chapters of the Book of Daniel have been mainly occupied with the Gentile powers, whether as they appear in the sight of man, or as viewed by God. From chapter eight to the end of the Book. the visions and interpretations in a very special way concern the Jews; many details are given that would have little interest or even meaning for the Gentile powers.
This may account for the fact that, from Dan 2:4 to the end of Daniel 7, the Spirit of God has used the Aramaic dialect, this portion of the book being more directly concerned with the Gentiles. In Daniel 8 the Spirit of God again reverts to the Hebrew language, which is used to the end of the Book, this part of the prophecy being specially concerned with the Jews.
In Daniel 8 we have the record of Daniel’s vision of the ram and the he-goat (verses 1-14); and the interpretation of the vision (verses 15-27).
We have seen that the second and third world empires have been pre-figured in the image by the breast and arms of silver, and the belly and thighs of brass, setting forth their imposing character in the sight of men. Again, in the visions of Daniel 7, they come before us under the figure of beasts – the bear and the leopard – to set forth their moral character in the sight of God. Now, again, in Daniel 8, the second and third empires pass before us under the figure of two animals – the ram and the he-goat – to set forth their history in relation to men. That these figures respectively set forth the Empires of Persia and Greece is not a matter of conjecture but revelation, according to the interpretation given by Gabriel in verses 20 and 21.
As these empires have passed away, the question might arise, What use can these details serve? Two things have to be borne in mind in answering this question. First, these empires, in the day of their power, had to do with God’s people, and whatever concerns His people touches His glory, and is of deep and lasting importance. Secondly, we have to remember that though these empires have “had their dominion taken away: yet their lives were prolonged for a season and time” (Dan 7:12). Thus, to the end of the times of the Gentiles, there will still exist nations that represent these once powerful empires, and, at the time of the end, these nations will be found in opposition to the people of God – the Jews. This it is that gives such importance to the details of Daniel 8. It prophetically gives the history of these two empires in the day of their power, and their connection with the people of God – prophecies which have already been fulfilled. At the same time their past history foreshadows their opposition to the people of God in the time of the end.
In reading these Scriptures, let us, as one has said, hold these two thoughts, “that Christ is the aim and end of all the counsels of God, and that the Jews are the objects of His counsels here below.” It is true that God’s earthly people have broken down, and, under the chastening of God, have been scattered and no longer publicly owned as His people. Nevertheless, they are still the people beloved for the fathers’ sake, and, when the time of their judicial blindness is past they will be restored to their land and re-established in blessing. “The gifts and calling of God are without repentance” (Rom 11:29). Moreover, if the everlasting love of God is still toward Israel, His eyes are still upon the Land and the Temple. The land may be desolate and trodden under foot of the Gentiles, but it is still the “land which the Lord thy God careth for: the eyes of thy God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year” (Deu 11:12). Again, the word came to Solomon, “I have hallowed this house, which thou hast built, to put My name there for ever; and Mine eyes and Mine heart shall be there perpetually.” (1Ki 9:3).
Keeping these thoughts before us, we can understand that everything that concerns God’s earthly people, whether in the past or future, is of the deepest importance to God, for in and through this people the glory of Christ on earth will at last be maintained, and all the counsels of God for the blessing of the nations be fulfilled.
Through their sin and failure the earthly people of God have come under the indignation and chastening of God, whereby they have fallen into the bondage of the nations. Nevertheless, God is not indifferent to the ill-treatment of His people by those who have taken occasion by God’s chastening to exalt themselves and persecute God’s people.
The prophecies of Daniel, as other Scriptures, clearly show that in the time of the end the opposition to and persecution of God’s people will take a threefold form.
First, there will be the persecution arising from the revived head of the Roman Empire, brought before us under the figure of the little horn of chapter 7. (See verses 21, 25, and Rev 13:1-10). Secondly, there will be the persecution arising against the Jews, when back in their land, from their northern enemy, as set forth in the little horn of chapter 8. Thirdly, there will be persecution from the Antichrist in their midst, brought before us in Dan 11:36to39. (See also Rev 13:11-18).
It is the second form of the persecution of God’s earthly people that passes before us in Daniel 8, that is to say, the persecution that comes from the Assyrian, or king of the north, referred to by so many of the prophets.
(a) The vision of the ram and the he-goat (1-14).
(Vv. 1, 2). This fresh vision appeared to Daniel in the third year of the reign of Belshazzar. The period of the first world empire was within three years of its close. In the palace of Shushan, in the province of Elam, Daniel in vision stood by the river Ulai.
(Vv. 3, 4). He sees a ram with two horns, one being higher than the other, and this higher horn appearing after the other This, we know from verse 20, is a figure of the Medo-Persian Empire, the two horns setting forth the dual character of the empire. One horn being higher than the other prophetically sets forth that one part of the empire would gain ascendancy over the other, and this dominating power would rise last. This we know is exactly what came to pass. Darius the Mede who crushed the power of Babylon, gave place to Cyrus the Persian, who rapidly gained the ascendancy in the Persian Empire. The victorious career of Cyrus, and the directions of his conquest, are foretold by the ram pushing toward the west, and north, and south. No power could stand against him or thwart his will.
(Vv. 5-7). As Daniel was considering this ram, he saw an he-goat come from the west, moving with such swiftness that he did not appear to touch the ground. Between the eyes of the goat was a notable horn. This rough goat, we know from verse 21, is a figure of the Grecian kingdom, and the great horn a figure of the first king. In few and striking words the passage sets forth the career of Alexander the Great.
The he-goat attacks the ram with such overwhelming force that there was no power in the ram to withstand the onslaught. The ram was cast down, ruthlessly crushed with none to deliver. The figure vividly sets forth the rapidity and ferocity of the conquests of Alexander by which the Persian Empire was crushed and came to its end as a world power, the Grecian Empire being established in its place.
(V. 8). Further, in the vision Daniel saw that the he-goat became very great, but at the summit of its power the great horn was broken, and in its place four notable horns came up towards the four winds of heaven. Again it is impossible not to see in this picture exactly what came to pass in history. Alexander’s brief but victorious career was cut short in the midst of his triumphs, and eventually the empire was divided into four kingdoms, Syria, Egypt, Greece and Thrace.
(Vv. 9, 10). Out of one of these four horns there came forth a little horn. Evidently this little horn sets forth a king that arises in the north, for he pursues his conquests towards the south, the east, and the pleasant land.
This “little horn” is not to be confounded with the “little horn” of Daniel 7. The expression “little horn” may indicate that the person thus figured arises from the mass, and, apart from his own genius, would be a person of no consequence. The little horn of Daniel 7 is evidently the head of the revived Roman Empire, while the little horn of Daniel 8 is a figure of the king of the north, who is the subject of many prophecies and who will play such a leading part in connection with God’s earthly people in the time of the end. For this reason, doubtless, the vision and interpretation are mainly occupied with this little horn.
It will help to notice that the portion of the vision to the end of verse 8 has already been fulfilled. At verse 9 we pass to that part of the vision the fulfilment of which is yet future. In the time of the end (verse 17), there will exist a nation north of Palestine that will attack the Jewish nation then gathered back in their land. The “host of heaven” would seem to be figurative of the people of God – those who own the rule of heaven. The “stars,” as in other Scriptures, set forth those who hold a place of subordinate authority under God amongst His people (See Rev 1:20; Rev 2:1; Rev 3:1). This northern power will be allowed, for a time, to overrun the “pleasant land,” and cast down those in authority among God’s people.
(Vv. 11, 12). Here the prophet speaks more particularly of the head of this northern power, for he no longer says “it” – the power – but “he” – a person. This person will exalt himself against Christ, the Prince of the host, and “from him” (not “by him” as in our translation) “the daily sacrifice was taken away.” The sacrifice will be taken from Jehovah and His sanctuary destroyed. The opening clause of verse 12 should read, “A time of trial was appointed to the continual sacrifice by reason of transgression” (N. Tn.). The meaning appears to be that the little horn will be allowed to take away the sacrifice because of the transgression of God’s people. Then the vision indicates that “it,” the northern power, will cast down tile truth and, for a time, be allowed to prosper and accomplish great things.
(Vv. 13, 14). At this point in the vision Daniel heard one saint speaking to another, and asking how long will the state of things of which the vision speaks be allowed to continue. Speaking to Daniel, one says that the sanctuary and the host will be trodden underfoot for two thousand three hundred days, or nearly six and one half years.
(b) The interpretation (Vv. 15-27).
(Vv. 15-18). In the verses that follow, the meaning of these visions is made known to Daniel by the Angel Gabriel. As ever, the interpretation adds further details to the vision. First, Daniel is definitely told that the vision looks on to the time of the end. Daniel, who is overcome by the vision of that which will happen to his people in the latter times, is strengthened to face the truth.
(V. 19). He is told that the vision speaks of the events that will terminate the “indignation,” and that whatever sorrows intervene they will have a definite end – “at the time appointed the end shall be.” The term “indignation” is a well known expression in prophecy setting forth the time during which God’s indignation is aroused against His people on account of their idolatry (See Isa 5:25; Isa 9:19; Isa 10:5; Isa 10:25).
(Vv. 20-22). Then follows the definite application of the vision to the second and third world empires – Persia and Greece, and the division of the Grecian Empire into four kingdoms.
(Vv. 23-24). Further details are then given as to the little horn. He will be a person characterised by boldness and knowledge of occult mysteries. His activities will be great and yet not by his own power. Apparently, he will have the support of some other power, being himself the instrument of foreign policy. He will attack and destroy the godly of those days, the saints of God – “the mighty and the holy people.”
(V. 25). Apparently, his triumph over the people of God will not be by force of arms, but by craft, and his policy will seem to secure peace by corrupting many of the professing people of God. In his daring he will stand up against the Prince of princes. This defiance of Christ will be his ruin. Christ will destroy this wicked man “without hand,” or apart from human means.
(Vv. 26, 27). Daniel is told that the vision is true, but that its fulfilment will not be for many days to come. It is possible that the future actions of this king of the north have been foreshadowed in the history of the vile Antiochus Epiphanes who, in his day, attacked the people of God by craft and corruption, desecrated the temple, and set aside the law. Nevertheless, for the fulfilment of the prophecy we must, according to the word of Gabriel, wait for the time of the end.
The effect of these visions upon Daniel was such that he fainted and was sick certain days. In spite of the interpretation, none but Daniel appeared to understand the vision.
Fuente: Smith’s Writings on 24 Books of the Bible
8:1 In the third year of the reign of king Belshazzar a vision appeared unto me, [even unto] me Daniel, {a} after that which appeared unto me at the first.
(a) After the general vision, he comes to certain particular visions with regard to the destruction of the monarchy of the Persians, and Macedonians: for the ruin of the Babylonians was at hand, and also he had sufficiently spoken of it.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
1. The setting of the vision 8:1
The third year of Belshazzar was about 551 B.C., two years after the vision in chapter 7 and about 12 years before the events of chapter 5. Daniel was then living within the kingdom of Neo-Babylonia, the first beast of chapter 7. Apparently this was not a dream combined with a vision (Dan 7:1), but just a vision. Probably it came to Daniel during the daytime. The vision that appeared to Daniel previously refers to the one in chapter 7.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
THE RAM AND THE HE-GOAT
This vision is dated as having occurred in the third year of Belshazzar; but it is not easy to see the significance of the date, since it is almost exclusively occupied with the establishment of the Greek Empire, its dissolution into the kingdoms of the Diadochi, and the godless despotism of King Antiochus Epiphanes.
The seer imagines himself to be in the palace of Shushan: “As I beheld I was in the castle of Shushan.” It has been supposed by some that Daniel was really there upon some business connected with the kingdom of Babylon. But this view creates a needless difficulty. Shushan, which the Greeks called Susa, and the Persians Shush (now Shushter), “the city of the lily,” was “the palace” or fortress (birah) of the Achaemenid kings of Persia. and it is most unlikely that a chief officer of the kingdom of Babylon should have been there in the third year of the imaginary King Belshazzar, just when Cyrus was on the eve of capturing Babylon without a blow. If Belshazzar is some dim reflection of the son of Nabunaid (though he never reigned), Shushan was not then subject to the King of Babylonia. But the ideal presence of the prophet there, in vision, is analogous to the presence of the exile Ezekiel in Jerusalem; {Eze 40:1} and these transferences of the prophets to the scenes of their operation were sometimes even regarded as bodily, as in the legend of Habakkuk taken to the lions den to support Daniel.
Shushan is described as being in the province of Elam or Elymais, which may be here used as a general designation of the district in which Susa was included. The prophet imagines himself as standing by the river-basin of the Ulai, which shows that we must take the words “in the castle of Shushan” in an ideal sense; for, as Ewald says, “it is only in a dream that images and places are changed so rapidly.” The Ulai is the river called by the Greeks the Eulaens, now the Karun.
Shushan is said by Pliny and Arrian to have been on the river Eulaens, and by Herodotus to have been on the banks of
“Choaspes, amber stream, The drink of none but kings.”
It seems now to have been proved that the Ulai was merely a branch of the Choaspes or Kerkhah.
Lifting up his eyes, Daniel sees a ram standing eastward of the river-basin. It has two lofty horns, the loftier of the two being the later in origin. It butts westward, northward, and southward, and does great things. But in the midst of its successes a he-goat, with a conspicuous horn between its eyes, comes from the West so swiftly over the face of all the earth that it scarcely seems even to touch the ground, and runs upon the ram in the fury of his strength, conquering and trampling upon him, and smashing in pieces his two horns. But his impetuosity was shortlived, for the great horn was speedily broken, and four others rose in its place towards the four winds of heaven. Out of these four horns shot up a puny horn, which grew exceedingly great towards the South, and towards the East, and towards the “Glory,” i.e., towards the Holy Land. It became great even to the host of heaven, and cast down some of the host and of the stars to the ground, and trampled on them. He even behaved proudly against the prince of the host, took away from him “the daily” (sacrifice), polluted the dismantled sanctuary with sacrilegious arms, and cast the truth to the ground and prospered. Then “one holy one called to another and asked, For how long is the vision of the daily [sacrifice], and the horrible sacrilege, that thus both the sanctuary and host are surrendered to be trampled underfoot?” And the answer is, “Until two thousand three hundred erebh-boqer, evening-morning; then will the sanctuary be justified.”
Daniel sought to understand the vision, and immediately there stood before him one in the semblance of a man, and he hears the distant voice of some standing between the Ulai- i.e. , between its two banks, or perhaps between its two branches the Eulaeus and the Choaspes-who called aloud to “Gabriel.” The archangel Gabriel is here first mentioned in Scripture. “Gabriel,” cried the voice, “explain to him what he has seen.” So Gabriel came and stood beside him; but he was terrified, and fell on his face. “Observe, thou son of man,” said the angel to him; “for unto the time of the end is the vision.” But since Daniel still lay prostrate on his face, and sank into a swoon, the angel touched him, and raised him up, and said that the great wrath was only for a fixed time, and he would tell him what would happen at the end of it.
The two-horned ram, he said, the Baalkeranaim, or “lord of two horns,” represents the King of Media and Persia; the shaggy goat is the Empire of Greece; and the great horn is its first king-Alexander the Great.
The four horns rising out of the broken great horn are four inferior kingdoms. In one of these, sacrilege would culminate in the person of a king of bold face, and skilled in cunning, who would become powerful, though not by his own strength. He would prosper and destroy mighty men and the people of the holy ones, and deceit would succeed by his double-dealing. He would contend against the Prince of princes and yet without a hand would he be broken in pieces.
Such is the vision and its interpretation; and though there is here and there a difficulty in the details and translation, and though there is a necessary crudeness in the emblematic imagery, the general significance of the whole is perfectly clear.
The scene of the vision is ideally placed in Shushan, because the Jews regarded it as the royal capital of the Persian dominion, and the dream begins with the overthrow of the Medo-Persian Empire. The ram is a natural symbol of power and strength, as in Isa 60:7. The two horns represent the two divisions of the empire, of which the later-the Persian – is the loftier and the stronger. It is regarded as being already the lord of the East, but it extends its conquests by butting westward over the Tigris into Europe, and southwards to Egypt and Africa, and northwards towards Scythia, with magnificent success.
The he-goat is Greece. Its one great horn represents “the great Emathian conqueror.” So swift was the career of Alexanders conquests, that the goat seems to speed along without so much as touching the ground. {Isa 5:26-29 Comp. #/RAPC 1Ma 1:3} With irresistible fury, in the great battles of the Granicus (B.C. 334), Issus (B.C. 333), and Arbela (B.C. 331), he stamps to pieces the power of Persia and of its king, Darius Codomannus. In this short space of time Alexander conquers Syria, Phoenicia, Cyprus, Tyre, Gaza, Egypt, Babylonia, Persia, Media, Hyrcania, Aria, and Arachosia. In B.C. 330 Darius was murdered by Bessus, and Alexander became lord of his kingdom. In B.C. 329 the Greek King conquered Bactria, crossed the Oxus and Jaxartes, and defeated the Scythians. In B.C. 328 he conquered Sogdiana. In B.C. 327 and 326 he crossed the Indus, Hydaspes, and Akesines, subdued Northern and Western India, and-compelled by the discontent of his troops to pause in his career of victory-sailed down the Hydaspes and Indus to the Ocean.
He then returned by land through Gedrosia, Karmania, Persia, and Susiana to Babylon.
There the great horn is suddenly broken without hand. {#/RAPC 1Ma 6:1-16 2Ma 9:9 Job 7:6 Pro 26:20} Alexander in B.C. 323, after a reign of twelve years and eight months, died as a fool dieth, of a fever brought on by fatigue, exposure, drunkenness, and debauchery. He was only thirty-two years old.
The dismemberment of his empire immediately followed. In B.C. 322 its vast extent was divided among his principal generals. Twenty-two years of war ensued; and in B.C. 301, after the defeat of Antigonus and his son Demetrius at the Battle of Ipsus, four horns are visible in the place of one. The battle was won by the confederacy of Cassander, Lysimachus, Ptolemy, and Seleucus, and they founded four kingdoms. Cassander ruled in Greece and Macedonia; Lysimachus in Asia Minor; Ptolemy in Egypt, Coele-Syria, and Palestine; Seleucus in Upper Asia.
With one only of the four kingdoms, and with one only of its kings, is the vision further concerned-with the kingdom of the Seleueidae, and with the eighth king of the Dynasty, Antiochus Epiphanes. In this chapter, however, a brief sketch only of him is furnished. Many details of the minutest kind are subsequently added.
He is called “a puny horn,” because, in his youth, no one could have anticipated his future greatness. He was only a younger son of Antiochus III (the Great). When Antiochus III was defeated in the Battle of Magnesia under Mount Sipylus (B.C. 190), his loss was terrible. Fifty thousand foot and four thousand horse were slain on the battlefield, and fourteen hundred were taken prisoners. He was forced to make peace with the Romans, and to give them hostages, one of whom was Antiochus the Younger, brother of Seleucus, who was heir to the throne. Antiochus for thirteen years languished miserably as a hostage at Rome. His father, Antiochus the Great, was either slain in B.C. 187 by the people of Elymais, after his sacrilegious plundering of the Temple of Jupiter-Belus; or murdered by some of his own attendants whom he had beaten during a fit of drunkenness. Seleucus Philopator succeeded him, and after having reigned for thirteen years, wished to see his brother Antiochus again. He therefore sent his son Demetrius in exchange for him, perhaps desiring that the boy, who was then twelve years old, should enjoy the advantage of a Roman education, or thinking that Antiochus would be of more use to him in his designs against Ptolemy Philometor, the child-king of Egypt. When Demetrius was on his way to Rome, and Antiochus had not yet reached Antioch, Heliodorus, the treasurer, seized the opportunity to poison Seleucus and usurp the crown.
The chances, therefore, of Antiochus seemed very forlorn. But he was a man of ability, though with a taint of folly and madness in his veins. By allying himself with Eumenes, King of Pergamum, as we shall see hereafter, he suppressed Heliodorus, secured the kingdom, and “becoming very great,” though only by fraud, cruelty, and stratagem, assumed the title of Epiphanes “the Illustrious.” He extended his power “towards the South” by intriguing and warring against Egypt and his young nephew, Ptolemy Philometor; and “towards the Sun-rising” by his successes in the direction of Media and Persia; {See #/RAPC 1Ma 3:29-37} and towards “the Glory” or “Ornament” (hatstsebi) – i.e., the Holy Land. Inflated with insolence, he now set himself against the stars, the host of heaven- i.e., against the chosen people of God and their leaders. He cast down and trampled on them, and defined the Prince of the host; for he
“Not een against the Holy One of heaven Refrained his tongue blasphemous.”
His chief enormity was the abolition of “the daily” (tamid) – i.e., the sacrifice daily offered in the Temple; and the desecration of the sanctuary itself by violence and sacrilege, which will be more fully set forth in the next chapters. He also seized and destroyed the sacred books of the Jews. As he forbade the reading of the Law-of which the daily lesson was called the Parashah -there began from this time the custom of selecting a lesson from the Prophets, which was called the Haphtarah.
It was natural to make one of the holy ones, who are supposed to witness this horrible iniquity, inquire how long it was to be permitted. The enigmatic answer is, “Until an evening-morning two thousand three hundred.”
In the further explanation given to Daniel by Gabriel a few more touches are added.
Antiochus Epiphanes is described as a king “bold of visage, and skilled in enigmas.” His boldness is sufficiently illustrated by his many campaigns and battles, and his braggart insolence has been already alluded to in Dan 7:8. His skill in enigmas is illustrated by his dark and tortuous diplomacy, which was exhibited in all his proceedings, {Comp. Dan 11:21} and especially in the whole of his dealings with Egypt, in which country he desired to usurp the throne from his young nephew Ptolemy Philometor. The statement that “he will have mighty strength, but not by his own strength,” may either mean that his transient prosperity was due only to the permission of God, or that his successes were won rather by cunning than by prowess. After an allusion to his cruel persecution of the holy people, Gabriel adds that “without a hand shall he be broken in pieces”; in other words, his retribution and destruction shall be due to no human intervention, but will come from God Himself.
Daniel is bidden to hide the vision for many days-a sentence which is due to the literary plan of the Book; and he is assured that the vision concerning the “evening-morning” was true. He adds that the vision exhausted and almost annihilated him; but, afterwards, he arose and did the kings business. He was silent about the vision, for neither he nor any one else understood it. Of course, had the real date of the chapter been in the reign of Belshazzar, it was wholly impossible that either the seer or any one else should have been able to attach any significance to it.
Emphasis is evidently attached to the “two thousand three hundred evening-morning” during which the desolation of the sanctuary is to continue.
What does the phrase “evening-morning” (erebh-boqer) mean?
In Dan 8:26 it is called “the vision concerning the evening and the morning.”
Does “evening-morning” mean a whole day, or half a day? The expression is doubly perplexing. If the writer meant “days,” why does he not say ” days ,” as in Dan 12:11-12? And why, in any case, does he here use the solecism erebh-boqer (Abendmorgen), and not, as in Dan 8:26, “evening and morning?” Does the expression mean two thousand three hundred days? or eleven hundred and fifty days?
It is a natural supposition that the time is meant to correspond with the three years and a half (“a time, two times, and half a time”) of Dan 7:25. But here again all certainty of detail is precluded by our ignorance as to the exact length of years by which the writer reckoned; and how he treated the month Veadar , a month of thirty days, which was intercalated once in every six years.
Supposing that he allowed an intercalary fifteen days for three and a half years, and took the Babylonian reckoning of twelve months of thirty days, then three and a half years gives us twelve hundred and seventy-five days, or, omitting any allowance for intercalation, twelve hundred and sixty days.
If, then, “two thousand three hundred evening-morning” means two thousand three hundred half days, we have one hundred and ten days too many for the three and a half years.
And if the phrase means two thousand three hundred full days, that gives us (counting thirty intercalary days for Veadar ) too little for seven years by two hundred and fifty days. Some see in this a mystic intimation that the period of chastisement shall for the elects sake be shortened. {Mat 24:22} Some commentators reckon seven years roughly, from the elevation of Menelaus to the high-priesthood (Kisleu, B.C. 1682 Macc. 5:11) to the victory of Judas Maccabaeus over Nicanor at Adasa, March, B.C. 161. {#/RAPC 1Ma 7:25-50 2Ma 15:20-35}
In neither case do the calculations agree with the twelve hundred and ninety or the thirteen hundred and thirty-five days of Dan 12:12-13.
Entire volumes of tedious and wholly inconclusive comment have been written on these combinations, but by no reasonable supposition can we arrive at close accuracy. Strict chronological accuracy was difficult of attainment in those days, and was never a matter about which the Jews, in particular, greatly troubled themselves. We do not know either the terminus a quo from which or the terminus ad quem to which the writer reckoned. All that can be said is that it is perfectly impossible for us to identify or exactly equiparate the three and a half years, {Dan 7:25} the “two thousand three hundred evening-morning,” {Dan 8:14} the seventy-two weeks, {Dan 9:26} and the twelve hundred and ninety. {Dan 12:11} Yet all those dates have this point of resemblance about them, that they very roughly indicate a space of about three and a half years (more or less) as the time during which the daily sacrifice should cease, and the Temple be polluted and desolate.
Turning now to the dates, we know that Judas the Maccabee cleansed {#/RAPC 1Ma 4:41-56 2Ma 10:1-5} (“justified” or “vindicated,” Dan 8:14) the Temple on Kisleu 25 (December 25th, B.C. 165). If we reckon back two thousand three hundred full days from this date, it brings us to B.C. 171, in which Menelaus, who bribed Antiochus to appoint him high priest, robbed the Temple of some of its treasures, and procured the murder of the high priest Onias III. In this year Antiochus sacrificed a great sow on the altar of burnt offerings, and sprinkled its broth over the sacred building. These crimes provoked the revolt of the Jews in which they killed Lysimachus, governor of Syria, and brought on themselves a heavy retribution.
If we reckon back two thousand three hundred half- days, eleven hundred and fifty whole days, we must go back three years and seventy days, but we cannot tell what exact event the writer had in mind as the starting-point of his calculations. The actual time which elapsed from the final defilement of the Temple by Apollonius, the general of Antiochus, in B.C. 168, till its re-purification was roughly three years. Perhaps, however-for all is uncertain-the writer reckoned from the earliest steps taken, or contemplated, by Antiochus for the suppression of Judaism. The purification of the Temple did not end the time of persecution, which was to continue, first, for one hundred and forty days longer, and then forty-five days more. {Dan 12:11-12} It is clear from this that the writer reckoned the beginning and the end of troubles from different epochs which we have no longer sufficient data to discover.
It must, however, be borne in mind that no minute certainty about the exact dates is attainable. Many authorities, from Prideaux down to Schurer, place the desecration of the Temple towards the close of B.C. 168. Kuenen sees reason to place it a year later. Our authorities for this period of history are numerous, but they are fragmentary, abbreviated, and often inexact. Fortunately, so far as we are able to see, no very important lesson is lost by our inability to furnish an undoubted or a rigidly scientific explanation of the minuter details.
APPROXIMATE DATES AS INFERRED BY CORNILL AND OTHERS
Jeremiahs prophecy in Jer 25:12-38
Jeremiahs “prophecy” in Jer 29:10-32
Destruction of the Temple-586 or 588
Return of the Jewish exiles.-537
Decree of Artaxerxes Longimanus {Ezr 7:1} -458
Second decree {Neh 2:1} -445
Accession of Antiochus Epiphanes (August, Clinton)-175
Usurpation of the high-priesthood by Jason-175
Jason displaced by Menelaus-172 (?)
Murder of Onias III (June)-171
Apollonius defiles the Temple-168
War of Independence-166
Purification of the Temple by Judas the Maccabee-(Dec.) 165
Death of Antiochus-163