Daniel 8 commentary

DANIEL 8 COMMENTARY
EDITED BY GLENN PEASE
Daniel’s Vision of a Ram and a Goat
1 In the third year of King Belshazzar’s reign, I,
Daniel, had a vision, after the one that had
already appeared to me.
BARNES, "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.
CLARKE, "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 Dan_2:4 to the end of chap.
7, 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.
GILL, "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
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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.
HENRY, "Here is, I. The date of this vision, Dan_8:1. 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, Ecc_1:9. 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.
JAMISON, "Dan_8:1-27. Vision of the ram and he-goat: The twenty-three hundred
days of the Sanctuary being trodden down.
With this chapter the Hebrew part of the book begins and continues to be the
language of the remainder; the visions relating wholly to the Jews and Jerusalem. The
scene here narrows from world-wide prophecies to those affecting the one covenant-
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people in the five centuries between the exile and the advent. Antichrist, like Christ, has
a more immediate future, as well as one more remote. The vision, the eighth chapter,
begins, and that, the tenth through twelfth chapters, concludes, the account of the
Antichrist of the third kingdom. Between the two visions the ninth chapter is inserted, as
to Messiah and the covenant-people at the end of the half millennium (seventy weeks of
years).
vision — a higher kind of revelation than a dream.
after that ... at the first — that in Dan_7:1.
K&D, "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 (Häv.) 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 ‫ה‬ ָ‫א‬ ְ‫ַנר‬ ִ‫ה‬
(that which appeared) takes place of the relative ‫ר‬ֶ‫ֲשׁ‬‫א‬, and the expression is concise for
‫ה‬ ָ‫א‬ ְ‫ר‬ִ‫נ‬ ‫ר‬ֶ‫ֲשׁ‬‫א‬ ‫ן‬ ‫ז‬ ָ‫ח‬ ֶ‫ה‬ (the vision which appeared); cf. Ewald's Lehr. §335a. ‫ה‬ָ‫לּ‬ ִ‫ח‬ ְ‫תּ‬ ַ‫בּ‬ (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 ‫ָה‬‫נ‬ֹ‫אשׁ‬ ִ‫ר‬ ָ‫בּ‬ (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., ἐν πνεύματι, not ἐν σώματι, Daniel was placed in the city of Susa, in
the province of Elam (Elymaïs). 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, Häv., Hgstb., Kran., and Kliefoth, against Bertholdt and Rosenmüller, 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, Hävernick 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
3

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 Elymaïs (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 Achämenides Vistaçpa:
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 Μεμνόνια Σοῦσα, 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
4

nothing more than that in Susa there was a tomb of Memnon (Häv.), 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 ‫ן‬ַ‫,שׁוּשׁ‬ 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 περιβόητα βασιλεῖα, 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 ‫ָה‬‫נ‬‫י‬ ִ‫ד‬ ְ‫,מ‬ a province, does not refer to a Chaldean province.
‫ם‬ ָ‫יל‬ֵ‫,ע‬ in Greek ̓Ελυμαΐ́ς, 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 Elymäi; 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, ̓́Ελαμος γὰρ ̓Ελαμαίους Περσῶν ὄντας
ἀρχηγέτας κατέλιπεν), 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. ‫י‬ַ‫אוּל‬ is the Εὐλαῖος, 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, ‫י‬ַ‫אוּל‬ 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
5

after them, is mentioned by Pliny of the Euläus, h. n. vi. 27, and in 31:3 of the Choaspes
and Euläus.
(Note: There is little probability in the supposition that Choaspes is the modern
Kerrah or Kerkha, the Euläus 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, ‫ל‬ִ‫י‬ ַ‫,א‬ standing by the river. The ‫ד‬ ָ‫ח‬ ֶ‫א‬
(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. ‫ת‬ ַ‫ח‬ ַ‫א‬ ָ‫ה‬ does not mean the first,
but the one, and ‫ית‬ִ‫נ‬ֵ‫שּׁ‬ ַ‫ה‬ 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
6

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. Häv.). 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 (Häv.), 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. ‫ח‬ ‫יּ‬ ַ‫,ח‬ to push, of beast, Exo_21:28, in the Piel figuratively is used of nations,
Deu_33:17; Psa_44:6. ‫דוּ‬ ָ‫מ‬ַ‫ַע‬‫י‬ is potentialis: could not stand. The masculine is here used,
because ‫ת‬ ‫יּ‬ ַ‫ח‬ (beasts) represents kingdoms and nations. ‫ֹנ‬‫צ‬ ְ‫ר‬ ִ‫כ‬ ‫ה‬ָ‫שׂ‬ָ‫,ע‬ did according to
his will, expresses arbitrary conduct, a despotic behaviour. ‫יל‬ ִ‫דּ‬ְ‫ג‬ ִ‫,ה‬ became great. The
word does not mean to become haughty, for ‫ב‬ ָ‫ב‬ ְ‫ל‬ ִ‫,בּ‬ in his heart, is not added here as it
is in Psa_44:25, but to magnify the action. It is equivalent to ‫ת‬ ‫ֲשׂ‬‫ע‬ַ‫ל‬ ‫יל‬ ִ‫דּ‬ְ‫ג‬ ִ‫ה‬ 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 ‫ץ‬ ֶ‫ר‬ ָ‫א‬ ָ‫בּ‬ ַ‫ֵע‬‫ג‬ ‫נ‬ ‫ין‬ ֵ‫א‬ ְ‫,ו‬ 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 ‫זוּת‬ ָ‫ח‬ ‫ן‬ ֶ‫ר‬ ֶ‫;ק‬ i.e., not a horn of vision, a
horn such as a goat naturally has, but here only in vision (Hofm., Klief.). This
7

interpretation would render ‫זוּת‬ ָ‫ח‬ 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 ‫ה‬ָ‫ל‬ ‫ד‬ְ‫גּ‬ ַ‫ה‬ ‫ן‬ ֶ‫ר‬ ֶ‫ק‬ ַ‫ה‬ (the great horn). Accordingly ‫זוּת‬ ָ‫ח‬ has the
meaning of ‫ה‬ ֶ‫א‬ ְ‫ר‬ ַ‫,מ‬ in the Keri ‫ה‬ ֶ‫א‬ ְ‫ר‬ ַ‫מ‬ ‫ישׁ‬ ִ‫,א‬ 2Sa_23:21, a man of countenance or sight (cf.
Targ. Est_2:2): a horn of sight, consideration, of considerable greatness; κέρας
θεορητόν (lxx, Theodot.), which Theodoret explains by ἐπίσημον καὶ περίβλεπτον.
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.
CALVIN, "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
8

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.
COFFMAN."This chapter stands as the irrefutable example of genuine predictive
prophecy at its most excellent achievement. Nobody, but nobody, can deny the
obvious meaning of this prophecy. Even the most outspoken critical enemies freely
admit the true meaning of the chapter, as did Herbert T. Andrews. He wrote:
"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 events of the
Maccabean age. The ram with the two horns stands for Medo-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 later split up. The "Little
horn" is Antiochus Epiphanes. His attack upon the Jewish religion is clearly
described."[1]
The only support for the critical proposition that this is "prophecy written after the
fact," based on the absurd proposition that the Book of Daniel was written about
165 B.C. (in the times of the Maccabees), is their arrogant, imaginative assertion to
that effect. We have referred to that assertion as "absurd." Why? Every line of the
Book of Daniel is in the Septuagint (LXX) version of the Old Testament.; and it was
translated into the Greek language in the year 250 B.C.. What better proof could
there be that Daniel was written long, long before the times of the Maccabees which
are so accurately described herein?
There are also many other remarkable proofs of the divine origin of these
remarkably vivid prophecies.
For example, if Daniel had been written in the times after Alexander appeared upon
9

the historical horizon, any writer of that period would most certainly have made the
ram, and not the goat, to have been the Greek kingdom. Why? Because Alexander
wore a ram's horn on his crown; and this writer has seen gold seals in the
Metropolitan Museum, New York City, carrying the image of Alexander the Great
with his invariable ram's horn. "Alexander wore that horn in support of his boast
that he was the son of Jupiter-Ammon."[2]
Then again, there is that story in Josephus which we mentioned in the introduction
that when the High Priest of Jerusalem showed Alexander this chapter in the Book
of Daniel, he spared the city from the punishment which their behavior had surely
merited, and even extended the most amazing privileges to Jerusalem and the Jews.
Some would question that story; but we accept it as the only reasonable explanation
of what most surely happened in those events.
In the light of known facts, therefore, we find it ,somewhat incredible that an
alleged Christian author would declare that:
Daniel is a straight piece of historical writing cast in the form of prophecy![3]
We fully agree with the words of many of the old commentators, for example, those
of Gaebelein, who stated that:
"Here indeed is history prewritten, for all of these things were revealed while the
Babylonian Empire was still flourishing. No wonder that critics and kindred infidels
have tried their very best to break down the authenticity of this book."[4]
Daniel 8:1-2
"In the third year of the reign of king Belshazzar a vision appeared unto me, Daniel,
after that which appeared unto me at the first. 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."
It is not necessary to suppose that Daniel was actually physically in Shushan for this
vision, because the text clearly says that his being there was "when he saw."
Furthermore, at the end of the chapter, when he took up his regular business with
the king he was not in Shushan, but in Babylon.
From time to time, critics in their vain efforts to discredit the prophecy have
complained that in the time here cited, namely in the third (and last year) of
Belshazzar, Shushan had not then been constructed, or that it was not in the
province of Elam, etc., etc. Those interested in pursuing such nit picking criticisms
will find all of them thoroughly refuted by C. F. Keil.[5] His unequivocal conclusion
was that, "The vision stands in intimate relationship to its contents and also to the
time at which the revelation was made to Daniel."[6]
10

COKE, "Introduction
CHAP. VIII.
Daniel's vision of the ram and he-goat. The two thousand three hundred days of
sacrifice. Gabriel comforteth Daniel, and interpreteth the vision.
Before Christ 553.
THIS chapter contains the vision of the ram and of the he-goat; or an account of the
Persian and Grecian monarchies; the explanation of the vision by the angel Gabriel;
the persecutions of the Jews in the profanation of their temple and removal of the
daily sacrifice, and the continuance of the troubles for 2300 days, till the sanctuary
should be cleansed; with a reference also to the persecutions and profanations of
antichrist.
Verse 1
Daniel 8:1. In the third year of—king Belshazzar— This vision was about five
hundred and fifty-three years before Christ. From chap. Daniel 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.
ELLICOTT, " (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 first—i.e., earlier. (Comp. Daniel 9:21.)
TRAPP, "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.
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. [Daniel 8:2]
11

A vision appeared unto me.] While waking likely: and for further explication of the
former vision, [Daniel 7:1-2] whereof because Daniel made so good use, ampliorem
gratiam accipit, saith Oecolampadius, he now receiveth further grace.
EBC, "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; [Ezekiel 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
12

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
13

in Isaiah 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 Alexander’s conquests, that the goat seems to
speed along without so much as touching the ground. [Isaiah 5:26-29 Comp.
#/RAPC 1 Maccabees 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 1 Maccabees
6:1-16, 2 Maccabees 9:9, Job 7:6, Proverbs 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
14

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 1 Maccabees 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 e’en 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 Daniel 7:8. His skill in enigmas is
15

illustrated by his dark and tortuous diplomacy, which was exhibited in all his
proceedings, {Comp. Daniel 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 king’s 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 Daniel 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 Daniel
12:11-12? And why, in any case, does he here use the solecism ‘erebh-boqer
(Abendmorgen), and not, as in Daniel 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 Daniel 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
16

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 elect’s sake be shortened. [Matthew 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 1 Maccabees 7:25-50, 2
Maccabees 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 Daniel 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, [Daniel
7:25] the "two thousand three hundred evening-morning," [Daniel 8:14] the
seventy-two weeks, [Daniel 9:26] and the twelve hundred and ninety. [Daniel 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 1
Maccabees 4:41-56, 2 Maccabees 10:1-5} ("justified" or "vindicated," Daniel 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
17

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. [Daniel 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
Jeremiah’s prophecy in Jeremiah 25:12-38
Jeremiah’s "prophecy" in Jeremiah 29:10-32
Destruction of the Temple-586 or 588
Return of the Jewish exiles.-537
Decree of Artaxerxes Longimanus [Ezra 7:1] -458
Second decree [Nehemiah 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
PETT, "Introduction
18

Chapter 8 The Rise of the Greek Empire and The Resulting Evil King Whose
Persecution Brought About Such a Transformation of The True Remnant In Israel
That The Time of God’s Wrath Against Israel Came to An End (Until Israel
Rejected The Messiah).
This chapter, which moves from the Aramaic of the previous six chapters to the
Hebrew of chapter 1 and of the remainder of the book, both debunks the theory of a
separate Medan empire in Daniel (as does Daniel 5:28) and explains at the same
time why it was thought necessary. It was mainly because the horn (the small one) of
chapter 7 was wrongly equated with the ‘small horn’ of chapter 8, both of which
were identified with Antiochus Epiphanes, a king arising from the Greek empire,
who savagely persecuted Israel.
But small horns are small because they are those which start to come up later, that
is they come up after others that precede them, therefore there can be any number
of them. It depends what beast they are on. And in fact these two are presented so
differently that to identify them would be to lose all sense of reality. What such
interpreters fail to acknowledge is that Antiochus Epiphanes is in fact but an
example of the greater Anti-God yet to come.
At this time the Babylonian empire was weakening and new powers were arising,
first the Medes, and then the Persian empire under Cyrus II who rebelled against
the Medes and conquered them (550 BC). He then conquered Lydia (547 BC) and
Babylon (539 BC). His son Cambyses followed him (530 BC) and conquered Egypt,
followed by Darius I (522 BC) and Xerxes (also named Ahasuerus - 486 BC). Both
Darius and Xerxes sought to conquer Greece which was made up of a number of
nation states, the last part of their world which remained unconquered. But, after
some success, they finally failed. However, the empire continued and at last seemed
on the point of taking over Greece as a result of bribing the Greeks to fight each
other, thus weakening them considerably, but civil war developed in the empire
preventing consolidation of the position, and they failed, although the Greeks of
Asia did still remain under their control.
Then Philip of Macedon united the Greeks, followed by his son Alexander the Great
(336 BC) who invaded the Persian empire, and having first ‘delivered’ the Greeks in
Asia, Alexander defeated the main Persian army in 333 BC. From there he went
forward and conquered the whole of the Mediterranean world and beyond. But
when he died (323 BC) his enfeebled son was unable to do anything and his empire
was eventually divided up into four empires, two of which were the Seleucids, north
of Palestine (Babylonia and Syria) and the Ptolemies, south of Palestine (in Egypt),
the ‘king of the north’ and ‘the king of the south’. Both empires were ‘Hellenised’,
that is, strongly influenced by Greek culture.
The Ptolemies ruled Palestine for the next one hundred years but interfered little in
their internal and religious affairs, until eventually there arose a Seleucid king name
19

Antiochus III, ‘the Great’ (223-187 BC), who annexed Palestine in 198 BC, and
showed the Jews great consideration. Meanwhile Hellenisation continued apace in
Palestine, causing growing dissension between the Hellenised Jews with their new
ideas, which at a minimum flirted with the Greek gods, and the more orthodox.
Then Antiochus III, encouraged by Hannibal of Carthage who was now a refugee in
Asia, advanced into Greece where he came into conflict with the might of Rome (192
BC), who drove him back from Greece and followed him into Asia, totally defeating
him. Antiochus III died in 187 BC while plundering an Elamite temple for needed
treasure, for he was still subject to Roman tribute. His son Seleucus IV (187-175 BC)
who succeeded him began to meddle more in Jewish affairs (2 Maccabees 3).
Things, however, came to a head in the reign of his successor and brother Antiochus
IV (Epiphanes) (175-163 BC) who had been a hostage in Rome. Threatened by both
Rome and Egypt he determined to unify his empire round Hellenistic culture,
including the worship of the Greek gods, which included himself as the
manifestation of Zeus, (depicted on his coins), and sought every means of building
up his treasury, plundering a number of temples in the cause. He took more
seriously what others before him had claimed.
He was a strange man. He would mix among the common people and partake in
their fun, and yet he could rob their temples, and treat them savagely, especially
when he thought that they were being unreasonable.
Internal dissension among the Jews, largely about Hellenisation and who should be
High Priest, meant that all parties looked for assistance to Antiochus, which was a
great mistake, and eventually, as a result of opposition to his policies, and probably
with his eye on the temple treasures, (he was an infamous robber of temples), he
sacked Jerusalem and practically forbade the practise of Judaism, suspending
regular sacrifices, destroying copies of the Scriptures and forbidding circumcision
and the observance of the Sabbath. Moreover all without exception were to offer
sacrifices to Zeus (see the Jewish histories 1 Maccabees 1:41-64; 2 Maccabees
6:1-11).
This was later followed by the erection of an altar to Zeus in the temple, on which he
sacrificed a pig, an abomination to the Jews, a Desolating Horror. This latter took
place in December 167 BC. While a deliberate snub to the Jews he almost certainly
could not understand why there was so much fuss. No other part of his empire
would have objected strongly to such moves.
This all resulted in a rebellion by the Jews under the Maccabees which enabled
them through good generalship, great bravery and fortuitous circumstances to free
themselves from Antiochus’ yoke and restore and cleanse the temple in December
164 BC, three years after its desecration.
The vision in this chapter sees this period as pivotal for Israel. The persecutions of
Antiochus were seen as the final and most furious manifestation of God’s
20

indignation against His people. The faithful remnant who resulted were seen as free
from wrath and as opening the way for the coming of the Davidic Messiah, Jesus,
(as depicted in chapter 7).
Verse 1
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.
PULPIY, "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.
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. 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 ( πρώτην)." 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.
21

BI 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
Nebuchadnezzar’s 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 Jehovah’s 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
22

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 God’s 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
23

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 Nebuchadnezzar’s 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 Nebuchadnezzar’s dream and that of Daniel’s 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
Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, and with the four-winged leopard with four heads in Daniel’s
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
24

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
25

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 God’s 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 Lord’s 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 Solomon’s
temple, was permitted to do his pleasure and prosper. (T. Kirk.)
26

2 In my vision I saw myself in the citadel of Susa
in the province of Elam; in the vision I was beside
the Ulai Canal.
BARNES, "And I saw in a vision - I looked as the vision appeared to me; or I saw
certain things represented to me in a vision. On the word vision, see the notes at Dan_
1:17. The meaning here would seem to be that a vision appeared to Daniel, and that he
contemplated it with earnestness, to understand what it meant.
That I was at Shushan - As remarked in the introduction to this chapter, this might
mean that he seemed to be there, or that the vision was represented to him as being
there; but the most natural construction is to suppose that Daniel was actually there
himself. Why he was there he has not informed us directly - whether he was on public
business, or on his own. From Dan_8:27, however - “Afterward I rose up, and did the
king’s business” - it would seem most probable that he was then in the service of the
king. This supposition will not conflict with the statement in Dan_5:10-11, in which the
queen-mother, when the handwriting appeared on the wall of the palace informs
Belshazzar that there was “a man in his kingdom in whom was the spirit of the holy
gods, etc.” - from which it might be objected that Daniel was at that time unknown to the
king, and could not have been in his employ, for it might have been a fact that he was in
the employ of the king as an officer of the government, and yet it may have been
forgotten that he had this power of disclosing the meaning of visions.
He may have been employed in the public service, but his services to the father of the
king, and his extraordinary skill in interpreting dreams and visions may not at once have
occurred to the affrighted monarch and his courtiers. Shushan, or Susa, the chief town
of Susiana, was the capital of Persia after the time of Cyrus, in which the kings of Persia
had their principal residence, Neh_1:1; Est_1:2-5. It was situated on the Eulaeus or
Choaspes, probably on the spot now occupied by the village Shus. - Rennel, Geog. of
Herodotus; Kinneir, Mem. Pers. Emp.; K. Porter’s Travels, ii. 4, 11; Ritter, Erdkunde,
Asien, 9: 294; Pict. Bib. in loc. At Shus there are extensive ruins, stretching perhaps
twelve miles from one extremity to the other, and consisting, like the other ruins in that
country, of hillocks of earth, and rubbish, covered with broken, pieces of brick and
colored tile. At the foot of these mounds is the so-called tomb of Daniel, a small building
erected on the spot where the remains of Daniel are believed in that region to rest.
It is apparently modern, but nothing but the belief that this was the site of the
prophet’s sepulchre could have led to its being built in the place where it stands -
Malcolm, Hist. of Persia, i. 255, 256. The city of Shus is now a gloomy wilderness,
inhabited by lions, hyenas, and other beasts of prey. - Kitto’s Cyclo., art. “Shushan.” Sir
John Kinneir says that the dread of these animals compelled Mr. Monteith and himself
to take shelter for the night within the walls that encompass Daniel’s tomb. Of that tomb
27

Sir John Malcolm says, “It is a small building, but sufficient to shelter some dervishes
who watch the remains of the prophet, and are supported by the alms of pious pilgrims,
who visit the holy sepulchre. The dervishes are now the only inhabitants of Susa; and
every species of wild beast roams at large over the spot on which some of the proudest
palaces ever raised by human art once stood.” - Vol. i. pp. 255, 256. For a description of
the ruins of Susa, see Pict. Bib. in loc. This city was about 450 Roman miles from
Seleucia, and was built, according to Pliny, 6; 27, in a square of about 120 stadia. It was
the summer residence of the Persian kings (Cyrop. 8, 6, 10), as they passed the spring in
Ecbatana, and the autumn and winter in Babylon. See Lengerke, in loc. It was in this city
that Alexander the Great married Stateira, daughter of Darius Codomanus. The name
means a lily, and was probably given to it on account of its beauty - Lengerke.
Rosenmuller supposes that the vision here is represented to have appeared to Daniel in
this city because it would be the future capital of Persia, and because so much of the
vision pertained to Persia. See Maurer, in loc.
In the palace - This word (‫בירה‬ bı̂yrâh) means a fortress, a castle, a fortified
palace. - Gesenius. See Neh_1:1; Est_1:5; Est_2:5; Est_8:14; Est_9:6, Est_9:11-12. It
would seem to have been given to the city because it was a fortified place. The word
applied not only to the palace proper, a royal residence, but to the whole adjacent city. It
is not necessary to suppose that Daniel was in the palace proper, but only that he was in
the city to which the name was given.
Which is in the province of Elam - See the notes at Isa_11:11. This province was
bounded on the east by Persia Proper, on the west by Babylonia, on the north by Media,
and on the south by the Persian Gulf. It was about half as large as Persia, and not quite
as large as England. - Kitto’s Cyclo. It was probably conquered by Nebuchadnezzar, and
in the time of Belshazzar was subject to the Babylonian dominion, Shushan had been
doubtless the capital of the kingdom of Elam while it continued a separate kingdom, and
remained the capital of the province while it was under the Babylonian yoke, and until it
was subdued as a part of the empire by Cyrus. It was then made one of the capitals of the
united Medo-Persian empire. It was when it was the capital of a province that it was
visited by Daniel, and that he saw the vision there. Possibly he may have dwelt there
subsequently, and died there.
And I was by the river of Ulai - This river flowed by the city of Shushan, or Susa,
and fell into the united stream of the Tigris and the Euphrates. It is called by Pliny (Nat.
Hist. vi. 81) Eulaeus; but it is described by Greek writers generally under the name of
Choaspes. - Herod. v. 49; Strabo, xv. p. 728. It is now known by the name Kerah, called
by the Turks Karasu. It passes on the west of the ruins of Shus (Susa), and enters the
Shat-ul-Arab about twenty miles below Korna. - Kinneir, Geog. Mem. of the Persian
Empire, pp. 96, 97. See Kitto’s Cyclo., art. “Ulai”
CLARKE, "I saw in a vision - Daniel was at this time in Shushan, which appears to
have been a strong place, where the kings of Persia had their summer residence. It was
the capital of the province of Elam or the Elymais; which province was most probably
added to the Chaldean territories by Nebuchadnezzar; see Jer_49:34, Jer_49:35. Here
was Daniel’s ordinary residence; and though here at this time, he, in vision, saw himself
on the banks of the river Ulai. This is the same as the river Euleus, which divided
Shushan or Susiana from Elymais.
28

GILL, "And I saw in a vision,.... The following things:
and it came to pass, when I saw, that I was at Shushan in the palace, which
is in the province of Elam; not in reality, but so it seemed to him in the vision; as
Ezekiel, when in Babylon, seemed in the visions of God to be at Jerusalem, Eze_8:3. This
city Shushan, or Susa, as it is called by other writers, and signifies a "lily", was so called
from the plenty of lilies that grew about it, or because of the pleasantness of it; it was the
metropolis of the country Susiana, which had its name from it, and was afterwards the
royal seat of the kings of Persia. This was first made so by Cyrus; for Strabo (a) says, that
he and the Persians having overcome the Medes, observing that their own country was
situated in the extreme parts, and Susa more inward, and nearer to other nations, being,
as he says, between Persia and Babylon, set his royal palace in it; approving both the
nearness of the country, and the dignity of the city. Here the kings of Persia laid up their
treasures, even prodigious large ones; hence Aristagoras told Cleomenes, that if he could
take that city, he would vie, and might contend, with Jupiter for riches (b); for hither
Cyrus carried whatever money he had in Persia, even forty thousand talents, some say
fifty (c). Alexander (d), when he took this city, found a vast quantity of riches in it. It is
called here a palace; and so it is spoken of by Herodotus (e), Diodorus Siculus (f),
Pausanius (g), Pliny (h), and others, as a royal city, where were the residence and palace
of the kings of Persia; but the royal palace was not in it at this time; the kings of Babylon
had their palace and kept their court at Babylon, where Daniel was; but in vision it
seemed to him that he was in Shushan, and which was represented to him as a palace, as
it would be, and as the metropolis of the kingdom of Persia, which he had a view of in its
future flourishing condition, and as destroyed by Alexander; for, as before observed, it
was Cyrus that first made it a royal city; whereas this vision was in the third year of
Belshazzar, king of Babylon. Some versions render it, a "tower" or "castle"; and so
several writers, as Strabo (i) Plutarch (k) and Pliny (l), speak of the tower or castle in it.
Diodorus Siculus (m) says, when Antigonus took the tower of Susa, he found in it a
golden vine, and a great quantity of other works, to the value of fifteen thousand talents;
and out of crowns, and other gifts and spoils, he made up five thousand more. And
Polybius (n) relates, that though Molon took the city, yet could not take the fortress, and
was obliged to raise the siege, so strong it was. It must be a mistake of Pliny (o) that this
city was built by Darius Hystaspes; he could only mean it was rebuilt, or rather enlarged,
by him, since it was in being long before his time, and even a royal city in the times of
Cyrus. Strabo (p) says it was built by Tithon the father of Merenon, was in compass a
fifteen miles, of an oblong figure, and the tower was called after his father's name
Mernnonia; and Shushan itself is called, by Herodotus (q), Susa Memnonia. At this day,
with the common people, it goes by the name of Tuster (r). The east gate of the mountain
of the house, which led to the temple at Jerusalem, was called Shushan. Some say (s)
there was a building over this gate, on which the palace of Shushan was portrayed, from
whence it had its name. The reason of this portrait is differently given; the Jewish
commentators on the Misnah (t) commonly say that this was ordered by the kings of
Persia, that the people of Israel might stand in awe of them, and not rebel against them.
Their famous lexicographer (u) says, that this was done, that the Israelites, when they
saw it, might remember their captivity in it. But a chronologer (w) of theirs gives this as
the reason, that the children of the captivity made this figure, that they might remember
the miracle of Purim, which was made in Shushan; and this, he says, is a good
29

interpretation of it. This city was in the province of Elam; that is, Persia, as it is also
called, Isa_21:6 for Josephus (x) says the Persians had their original from the Elamites,
or Elameans; and Pliny (y) observes, that Elymais joined to Persia; and the country of
Susiane, so called from Susa its chief city, was, according to Strabo (z) and Ptolemy (a1),
a part of Persia: and here Daniel in vision thought himself to be; and a very suitable
place for him to have this vision in, which so much concerned the affairs of Persia.
And I saw in a vision, and I was by the river Ulai; that is, in vision; it seemed to
the prophet that he was upon the banks of the river Ulai; the same with the Eulaeus of
Strabo (b1), Pliny (c1), Ptolemy (d1), and others, which ran by, and surrounded, the city
of Shushan, or Susa; the water of which was so light, as Strabo (e1) observes, that it was
had in great request, and the kings of Persia would drink of no other, and carried it with
them wherever they went. Herodotus (f1) and Curtius (g1) make mention of the river
Choaspes, as running by Susa, and say the same things of its water; from whence it
might be concluded it was one and the same river, called by different names; though
Strabo takes notice of them together, as if they were distinct; yet he, from Polycletus
(h1), makes them, with Tigris, to disembogue into the same lake, and from thence into
the sea. The river which runs by Shushan, now called Souster, according to Monsieur
Thevenot (i1), is Caron, and comes from the hills about it, and is thought to be the
Choaspes of the ancients; near to which, as he was told, is a hill that now goes by the
name of Choasp; so that, upon the whole, they seem to be one and the same river (k1).
Josephus says (l1), that Daniel had this vision in the plain of Susa, the metropolis of
Persia, as he went out with his friends, that is, out of the city: and the Vulgate Latin
version renders it, "by the gate Ulai"; a gate of the city of Shushan so called: and so
Saadiah Gaon interprets it a gate; but the former sense is best.
JAMISON, "Shushan — Susa. Though then comparatively insignificant, it was
destined to be the capital of Persia after Cyrus’ time. Therefore Daniel is transported into
it, as being the capital of the kingdom signified by the two-horned ram (Neh_1:1; Est_
1:2-5).
Elam — west of Persia proper, east of Babylonia, south of Media. Daniel was not
present there personally, but in vision.
Ulai — called in Pliny Euloeus; by the Greeks, Choaspes. Now Kerah, or Karasu. So in
Dan_10:4 he receives a vision near another river, the Hiddekel. So Ezekiel (Eze_1:1) at
the Chebar. Perhaps because synagogues used to be built near rivers, as before praying
they washed their hands in the water [Rosenmuller], (Psa_137:1).
CALVIN, "Without any doubt, the Prophet here recognized a new empire as about
to arise, which could not happen without Babylon being reduced to slavery. Hence it
would tend in. no slight degree to alleviate the cares of the pious, and to mitigate
their sorrows, when they saw what they had previously thought incredible, namely,
the approaching destruction of that horrible tyranny under which they had been so,
cruelly oppressed. And if the liberty of returning to their country was not
immediately granted to the people, it would be no small consolation to behold God’s
judgment against the Chaldeans as foretold by the prophets. We must now examine
the Prophet’s language. I have seen in a vision, says he. This word ‫,חזון‬ chezon, a
“vision,” is added to show us that the ram of which mention is made was not seen by
the eyes of the body. Hence this was a heavenly oracle, and ought to have raised the
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