{"commentary":{"id":"keil-delitzsch","name":"Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary","website":"https://worthy.bible/commentaries/keil-delitzsch-commentary","licenseUrl":"https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/","licenseNotes":null,"licenseNotice":null,"englishName":"Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary","language":"eng","textDirection":"rtl","sha256":"bb5cc0f9cfe0a93b3c903bb6972c6bc8c4e9f2bd3be6c2a6d276737cf9c5edce","availableFormats":["json"],"listOfBooksApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/books.json","listOfProfilesApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/profiles.json","numberOfBooks":39,"totalNumberOfChapters":909,"totalNumberOfVerses":6516,"totalNumberOfProfiles":0,"languageName":"English","languageEnglishName":"English"},"book":{"id":"DAN","commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","name":"Daniel","commonName":"Daniel","introduction":"The Prophecies of Daniel\n\nIntroduction\n\nI. The Person of the Prophet\n\nThe name דּניּאל or דּנאל (Eze 14:14, Eze 14:20; Eze 28:3), Δανιήλ, i.e., \"God is my Judge,\" or, if the י is the Yod compaginis, \"God is judging,\" \"God will judge,\" but not \"Judge of God,\" is in the Old Testament borne by a son of David by Abigail (Ch1 3:1), a Levite in the time of Ezra (Ezr 8:2; Neh 10:7 6), and by the prophet whose life and prophecies form the contents of this book.\n\nOf Daniel's life the following particulars are related: - From Dan 1:1-5 it appears that, along with other youths of the \"king's seed,\" and of the most distinguished families of Israel, he was carried captive to Babylon, in the reign of Jehoiakim, by Nebuchadnezzar, when he first came up against Jerusalem and took it, and that there, under the Chaldee name of Belteshazzar, he spent three years in acquiring a knowledge of Chaldee science and learning, that he might be prepared for serving in the king's palace. Whether Daniel was of the \"seed royal,\" or only belonged to one of the most distinguished families of Israel, is not decided, inasmuch as there is no certain information regarding his descent. The statement of Josephus (Ant. 10:10,1), that he was ἐκ τοῦ Σεδεκίου γένους, is probably an opinion deduced from Dan 1:3, and it is not much better established than the saying of Epiphanius (Adv. Haeres. 55.3) that his father was called Σαβαάν, and that of the Pseudo-Epiphanius (de vita proph. ch. 10) that he was born at Upper Bethhoron, not far from Jerusalem. During the period set apart for his education, Daniel and his like-minded friends, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, who had received the Chaldee names Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, abstained, with the consent of their overseer, from the meat and drink provided for them from the king's table, lest they should thereby be defiled through contact with idolatry, and partook only of pulse and water. This stedfast adherence to the faith of their fathers was so blessed of God, that they were not only in bodily appearance fairer than the other youths who ate of the king's meat, but they also made such progress in their education, that at the end of their years of training, on an examination of their attainments in the presence of the king, they far excelled all the Chaldean wise men throughout the whole kingdom (Dan 1:6-20).\n\nAfter this, in the second year of his reign, Nebuchadnezzar, being troubled in spirit by a remarkable dream which he had dreamt, called to him all the astrologers and Chaldeans of Babylon, that they might tell him the dream and interpret it. They confessed their inability to fulfil his desire. The king's dream and its interpretation were then revealed by God to Daniel, in answer to prayer, so that he could tell the matter to the king. On this account Nebuchadnezzar gave glory to the God of the Jews as the God of gods and the Revealer of hidden things, and raised Daniel to the rank of ruler over the whole province of Babylon, and chief president over all the wise men of Babylon. At the request of Daniel, he also appointed his three friends to be administrators over the province, so that Daniel remained in the king's palace (Daniel 2). He held this office during the whole of Nebuchadnezzar's reign, and interpreted, at a later period, a dream of great significance relative to a calamity which was about to fall upon the king (Daniel 4).\n\nAfter Nebuchadnezzar's death he appears to have been deprived of his elevated rank, as the result of the change of government. But Belshazzar, having been alarmed during a riotous feast by the finger of a man's hand writing on the wall, called to him the Chaldeans and astrologers. None of them was able to read and to interpret the mysterious writing. The king's mother thereupon directed that Daniel should be called, and he read and interpreted the writing to the king. For this he was promoted by the king to be the third ruler of the kingdom, i.e., to be one of the three chief governors of the kingdom (Daniel 5). This office he continued to hold under the Median king Darius. The other princes of the empire and the royal satraps sought to deprive him of it, but God the Lord in a wonderful manner saved him (Daniel 6) by His angel from the mouth of the lions; and he remained in office under the government of the Persian Cyrus (Dan 6:28 [29]).\n\nDuring this second half of his life Daniel was honoured by God with revelations regarding the development of the world-power in its different phases, the warfare between it and the kingdom of God, and the final victory of the latter over all hostile powers. These relations are contained in Daniel 7-12. The last of them was communicated to him in the third year of Cyrus the king (Dan 10:1), i.e., in the second year after Cyrus had issued his edict (Ezr 1:1.) permitting the Jews to return to their own land and to rebuild the temple at Jerusalem. Hence we learn that Daniel lived to see the beginning of the return of his people from their exile. He did not, however, return to his native land with the company that went up under Zerubbabel and Joshua, but remained in Babylon, and there ended his days, probably not long after the last of these revelations from God had been communicated to him, which concluded with the command to seal up the book of his prophecies till the time of the end, and with the charge, rich in its comfort, to go in peace to meet his death, and to await the resurrection from the dead at the end of the days (Dan 12:4, Dan 12:13). If Daniel was a youth (ילד, Dan 1:4, Dan 1:10) of from fifteen to eighteen years of age at the time of his being carried captive into Chaldea, and died in the faith of the divine promise soon after the last revelation made to him in the third year (Dan 10:1) of king Cyrus, then he must have reached the advanced age of at least ninety years.\n\nThe statements of this book regarding his righteousness and piety, as also regarding his wonderful endowment with wisdom to reveal hidden things, receive a powerful confirmation from the language of his contemporary Ezekiel (Eze 14:14, Eze 14:20), who mentions Daniel along with Noah and Job as a pattern of righteousness of life pleasing to God, and (Eze 28:3) speaks of his wisdom as above that of the princes of Tyre. If we consider that Ezekiel gave expression to the former of these statements fourteen years, and to the other eighteen years, after Daniel had been carried captive to Babylon, and also that the former statement was made eleven, and the latter fifteen years, after his elevation to the rank of president of the Chaldean wise men, then it will in no way appear surprising to us to find that the fame of his righteousness and his wonderful wisdom was so spread abroad among the Jewish exiles, that Ezekiel was able to point to him as a bright example of these virtues. When now God gave him, under Belshazzar, a new opportunity, by reading and interpreting the mysterious handwriting on the wall, of showing his supernatural prophetic gifts, on account of which he was raised by the king to one of the highest offices of state in the kingdom; when, moreover, under the Median king Darius the machinations of his enemies against his life were frustrated by his wonderful deliverance from the jaws of the lions, and he not only remained to hoary old age to hold that high office, but also received from God revelations regarding the development of the world-power and of the kingdom of God, which in precision excel all the predictions of the prophets, - then it could not fail but that a life so rich in the wonders of divine power and grace should not only attract the attention of his contemporaries, but also that after his death it should become a subject of wide-spread fame, as appears from the apocryphal addition to his book in the Alexandrine translation of it, and in the later Jewish Haggada, and be enlarged upon by the church fathers, and even by Mohammedan authors. Cf. Herbelot, Biblioth. Orient. s.v. Daniel, and Delitzsch, de Habacuci Proph. vita atque aetate, Lps. 1842, p. 24ff.\n\nRegarding the end of Daniel's life and his burial nothing certain is known. The Jewish report of his return to his fatherland (cf. Carpzov, Introd. iii. p. 239f.) has as little historical value as that which relates that he died in Babylon, and was buried in the king's sepulchre (Pseud.-Epiph.), or that his grave was in Susa (Abulph. and Benjamin of Tudela).\n\nIn direct opposition to the wide-spread reports which bear testimony to the veneration with which the prophet was regarded, stands the modern naturalistic criticism, which, springing from antipathy to the miracles of the Bible, maintains that the prophet never existed at all, but that his life and labours, as they are recorded in this book, are the mere invention of a Jew of the time of the Maccabees, who attributed his fiction to Daniel, deriving the name from some unknown hero of mythic antiquity (Bleek, von Lengerke, Hitzig) or of the Assyrian exile (Ewald).\n\nII. Daniel's Place in the History of the Kingdom of God\n\nThough Daniel lived during the Babylonian exile, yet it was not, as in the case of Ezekiel, in the midst of his countrymen, who had been carried into captivity, but at the court of the ruler of the world and in the service of the state. To comprehend his work for the kingdom of God in this situation, we must first of all endeavour to make clear the significance of the Babylonian exile, not only for the people of Israel, but also for the heathen nations, with reference to the working out of the divine counsel for the salvation of the human race.\n\nLet us first fix our attention on the significance of the exile for Israel, the people of God under the Old Covenant. The destruction of the kingdom of Judah and the deportation of the Jews into Babylonish captivity, not only put an end to the independence of the covenant people, but also to the continuance of that constitution of the kingdom of God which was founded at Sinai; and that not only temporarily, but for ever, for in its integrity it was never restored. God the Lord had indeed, in the foundation of the Old Covenant, through the institution of circumcision as a sign of the covenant for the chosen people, given to the patriarch Abraham the promise that He would establish His covenant with him and his seed as an everlasting covenant, that He would be a God to them, and would give them the land of Canaan as a perpetual possession (Gen 17:18-19). Accordingly, at the establishment of this covenant with the people of Israel by Moses, the fundamental arrangements of the covenant constitution were designated as everlasting institutions (עולם חקּת or חק); as, for example, the arrangements connected with the feast of the passover (Exo 12:14, Exo 12:17, Exo 12:24), the day of atonement (Lev 16:29, Lev 16:31, Lev 16:34), and the other feasts (Lev 23:14, Lev 23:21, Lev 23:31, Lev 23:41), the most important of the arrangements concerning the offering of sacrifice (Lev 3:17; Lev 7:34, Lev 7:36; Lev 10:15; Num 15:15; Num 18:8, Num 18:11, Num 18:19), and concerning the duties and rights of the priests (Exo 27:21; Exo 28:43; Exo 29:28; Exo 30:21), etc. God fulfilled His promise. He not only delivered the tribes of Israel from their bondage in Egypt by the wonders of His almighty power, and put them in possession of the land of Canaan, but He also protected them there against their enemies, and gave to them afterwards in David a king who ruled over them according to His will, overcame all their enemies, and made Israel powerful and prosperous. Moreover He gave to this king, His servant David, who, after he had vanquished all his enemies round about, wished to build a house for the Lord that His name might dwell there, the Great Promise: \"When thy days be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build an house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom for ever. I will be his Father, and he shall be my son. If he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men: but my mercy shall not depart away from him ... . And thine house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever before thee: thy throne shall be established for ever\" (Sa2 7:12-16). Wherefore after David's death, when his son Solomon built the temple, the word of the Lord came to him, saying, \"If thou wilt walk in my statutes, ... then will I perform my word unto thee which I spake unto David thy father, and I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will not forsake my people Israel\" (Kg1 6:12-13). After the completion of the building of the temple the glory of the Lord filled the house, and God appeared to Solomon the second time, renewing the assurance, \"If thou wilt walk before me as David thy father walked, ... then I will establish the throne of thy kingdom upon Israel for ever, as I promised to David thy father\" (Kg1 9:2-5). The Lord was faithful to this His word to the people of Israel, and to the seed of David. When Solomon in his old age, through the influence of his foreign wives, was induced to sanction the worship of idols, God visited the king's house with chastisement, by the revolt of the ten tribes, which took place after Solomon's death; but He gave to his son Rehoboam the kingdom of Judah and Benjamin, with the metropolis Jerusalem and the temple, and He preserved this kingdom, notwithstanding the constantly repeated declension of the king and the people into idolatry, even after the Assyrians had destroyed the kingdom of the ten tribes, whom they carried into captivity. But at length Judah also, through the wickedness of Manasseh, filled up the measure of its iniquity, and brought upon itself the judgment of the dissolution of the kingdom, and the carrying away of the inhabitants into captivity into Babylon.\n\nIn his last address and warning to the people against their continued apostasy from the Lord their God, Moses had, among other severe chastisements that would fall upon them, threatened this as the last of the punishments with which God would visit them. This threatening was repeated by all the prophets; but at the same time, following the example of Moses, they further announced that the Lord would again receive into His favour His people driven into exile, if, humbled under their sufferings, they would turn again unto Him; that He would gather them together from the heathen lands, and bring them back to their own land, and renew them by His Spirit, and would then erect anew in all its glory the kingdom of David under the Messiah. Thus Micah not only prophesied the destruction of Jerusalem and of the temple, and the leading away into captivity of the daughters of Zion (Mic 3:12; Mic 4:10), but also the return from Babylon and the restoration of the former dominion of the daughters of Jerusalem, their victory over all their enemies under the sceptre of the Ruler who would go forth from Bethlehem, and the exaltation of the mountain of the house of the Lord above all mountains and hills in the last days (Mic 5:1., Mic 4:1.). Isaiah also announced (Isa 40-66) the deliverance of Israel out of Babylon, the building up of the ruins of Jerusalem and Judah, and the final glory of Zion through the creation of new heavens and a new earth. Jeremiah, in like manner, at the beginning of the Chaldean catastrophe, not only proclaimed to the people who had become ripe for the judgment, the carrying away into Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar, and the continuance of the exile for the space of seventy years, but he also prophesied the destruction of Babylon after the end of the seventy years, and the return of the people of Judah and Israel who might survive to the land of their fathers, the rebuilding of the desolated city, and the manifestation of God's grace toward them, by His entering into a new covenant with them, and writing His law upon their hearts and forgiving their sins (Jer 25:9-12; 31:8-34).\n\nHence it evidently appears that the abolition of the Israelitish theocracy, through the destruction of the kingdom of Judah and the carrying away of the people into exile by the Chaldeans, in consequence of their continued unfaithfulness and the transgression of the laws of the covenant on the part of Israel, was foreseen in the gracious counsels of God; and that the perpetual duration of the covenant of grace, as such, was not dissolved, but only the then existing condition of the kingdom of God was changed, in order to winnow that perverse people, who, notwithstanding all the chastisements that had hitherto fallen upon them, had not in earnest turned away from their idolatry, by that the severest of all the judgments that had been threatened them; to exterminate by the sword, by famine, by the plague, and by other calamities, the incorrigible mass of the people; and to prepare the better portion of them, the remnant who might repent, as a holy seed to whom God might fulfil His covenant promises.\n\nAccordingly the exile forms a great turning-point in the development of the kingdom of God which He had founded in Israel. With that event the form of the theocracy established at Sinai comes to an end, and then begins the period of the transition to a new form, which was to be established by Christ, and has been actually established by Him. The form according to which the people of God constituted an earthly kingdom, taking its place beside the other kingdoms of the nations, was not again restored after the termination of the seventy years of the desolations of Jerusalem and Judah, which had been prophesied by Jeremiah, because the Old Testament theocracy had served its end. God the Lord had, during its continuance, showed daily not only that He was Israel's God, a merciful and gracious God, who was faithful to His covenant towards those who feared Him and walked in His commandments and laws, and who could make His people great and glorious, and had power to protect them against all their enemies; but also that He was a mighty and a jealous God, who visits the blasphemers of His holy name according to their iniquity, and is able to fulfil His threatenings no less than His promises. It was necessary that the people of Israel should know by experience that a transgressing of the covenant and a turning away from the service of God does not lead to safety, but hastens onward to ruin; that deliverance from sin, and salvation life and happiness, can be found only with the Lord who is rich in grace and in faithfulness, and can only be reached by a humble walking according to His commandments.\n\nThe restoration of the Jewish state after the exile was not a re-establishment of the Old Testament kingdom of God. When Cyrus granted liberty to the Jews to return to their own land, and commanded them to rebuild the temple of Jehovah in Jerusalem, only a very small band of captives returned; the greater part remained scattered among the heathen. Even those who went home from Babylon to Canaan were not set free from subjection to the heathen world-power, but remained, in the land which the Lord had given to their fathers, servants to it. Though now again the ruined walls of Jerusalem and the cities of Judah were restored, and the temple also was rebuilt, and the offering up of sacrifice renewed, yet the glory of the Lord did not again enter into the new temple, which was also without the ark of the covenant and the mercy-seat, so as to hallow it as the place of His gracious presence among His people. The temple worship among the Jews after the captivity was without its soul, the real presence of the Lord in the sanctuary; the high priest could no longer go before God's throne of grace in the holy of holies to sprinkle the atoning blood of the sacrifice toward the ark of the covenant, and to accomplish the reconciliation of the congregation with their God, and could no longer find out, by means of the Urim and Thummim, the will of the Lord. When Nehemiah had finished the restoration of the walls of Jerusalem, prophecy ceased, the revelations of the Old Covenant came to a final end, and the period of expectation (during which no prophecy as given) of the promised Deliverer, of the seed of David, began. When this Deliverer appeared in Jesus Christ, and the Jews did not recognise Him as their Saviour, but rejected Him and put Him to death, they were at length, on the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple by the Romans, scattered throughout the whole world, and to this day they live in a state of banishment from the presence of the Lord, till they return to Christ, and through faith in Him again enter into the kingdom of God and be blessed.\n\nThe space of 500 years, from the end of the Babylonish captivity to the appearance of Christ, can be considered as the last period of the Old Covenant only in so far as in point of time it precedes the foundation of the New Covenant; but it was in reality, for that portion of the Jewish people who had returned to Judea, no deliverance from subjection to the power of the heathen, no re-introduction into the kingdom of God, but only a period of transition from the Old to the New Covenant, during which Israel were prepared for the reception of the Deliverer coming out of Zion. This respect this period may be compared with the forty, or more accurately, the thirty-eight years of the wanderings of Israel in the Arabian desert. As God did not withdraw all the tokens of His gracious covenant from the race that was doomed to die in the wilderness, but guided them by His pillar of cloud and fire, and gave them manna to eat, so He gave grace to those who had returned from Babylon to Jerusalem to build again the temple and to restore the sacrificial service, whereby they prepared themselves for the appearance of Him who should build the true temple, and make an everlasting atonement by the offering up of His life as a sacrifice for the sins of the world.\n\nIf the prophets before the captivity, therefore, connect the deliverance of Israel from Babylon and their return to Canaan immediately with the setting up of the kingdom of God in its glory, without giving any indication that between the end of the Babylonish exile and the appearance of the Messiah a long period would intervene, this uniting together of the two events is not to be explained only from the perspective and apotelesmatic character of the prophecy, but has its foundation in the very nature of the thing itself. The prophetic perspective, by virtue of which the inward eye of the seer beholds only the elevated summits of historical events as they unfold themselves, and not the valleys of the common incidents of history which lie between these heights, is indeed peculiar to prophecy in general, and accounts for the circumstance that the prophecies as a rule give no fixed dates, and apotelesmatically bind together the points of history which open the way to the end, with the end itself. But this formal peculiarity of prophetic contemplation we must not extend to the prejudice of the actual truth of the prophecies. The fact of the uniting together of the future glory of the kingdom of God under the Messiah with the deliverance of Israel from exile, has perfect historical veracity. The banishment of the covenant people from the land of the Lord and their subjection to the heathen, was not only the last of those judgments which God had threatened against His degenerate people, but it also continues till the perverse rebels are exterminated, and the penitents are turned with sincere hearts to God the Lord and are saved through Christ. Consequently the exile was for Israel the last space for repentance which God in His faithfulness to His covenant granted to them. Whoever is not brought by this severe chastisement to repentance and reformation, but continues opposed to the gracious will of God, on him falls the judgment of death; and only they who turn themselves to the Lord, their God and Saviour, will be saved, gathered from among the heathen, brought in within the bonds of the covenant of grace through Christ, and become partakers of the promised riches of grace in His kingdom.\n\nBut with the Babylonish exile of Israel there also arises for the heathen nations a turning-point of marked importance for their future history. So long as Israel formed within the borders of their own separated land a peculiar people, under immediate divine guidance, the heathen nations dwelling around came into manifold hostile conflicts with them, while God used them as a rod of correction for His rebellious people. Though they were often at war among themselves, yet, in general separated from each other, each nation developed itself according to its own proclivities. Besides, from ancient times the greater kingdoms on the Nile and the Euphrates had for centuries striven to raise their power, enlarging themselves into world-powers; while the Phoenicians on the Mediterranean sea-coast gave themselves to commerce, and sought to enrich themselves with the treasures of the earth. In this development the smaller as well as the larger nations gradually acquired strength. God had permitted each of them to follow its own way, and had conferred on them much good, that they might seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after Him and find Him; but the principle of sin dwelling within them had poisoned their natural development, so that they went farther and farther away from the living God and from everlasting good, sunk deeper and deeper into idolatry and immorality of every kind, and went down with rapid steps toward destruction. Then God began to winnow the nations of the world by His great judgments. The Chaldeans raised themselves, under energetic leaders, to be a world-power, which not only overthrew the Assyrian kingdom and subjugated all the lesser nations of Hither Asia, but also broke the power of the Phoenicians and Egyptians, and brought under its dominion all the civilised peoples of the East. With the monarchy founded by Nebuchadnezzar it raised itself in the rank of world-powers, which within not long intervals followed each other in quick succession, until the Roman world-monarchy arose, by which all the civilised nations of antiquity were subdued, and under which the ancient world came to a close, at the appearance of Christ. These world-kingdoms, which destroyed one another, each giving place, after a short existence, to its successor, which in its turn also was overthrown by another that followed, led the nations, on the one side, to the knowledge of the helplessness and the vanity of their idols, and taught them the fleeting nature and the nothingness of all earthly greatness and glory, and, on the other side, placed limits to the egoistical establishment of the difference nations in their separate interests, and the deification of their peculiarities in education, culture, art, and science, and thereby prepared the way, by means of the spreading abroad of the language and customs of the physically or intellectually dominant people among all the different nationalities united under one empire, for the removal of the particularistic isolation of the tribes separated from them by language and customs, and for the re-uniting together into one universal family of the scattered tribes of the human race. Thus they opened the way for the revelation of the divine plan of salvation to all peoples, whilst they shook the faith of the heathen in their gods, destroyed the frail supports of heathen religion, and awakened the longing for the Saviour from sin, death, and destruction.\n\nBut God, the Lord of heaven and earth, revealed to the heathen His eternal Godhead and His invisible essence, not only by His almighty government in the disposal of the affairs of their history, but He also, in every great event in the historical development of humanity, announced His will through that people whom He had chosen as the depositaries of His salvation. Already the patriarchs had, by their lives and by their fear of God, taught the Canaanites the name of the Lord so distinctly, that they were known amongst them as \"princes of God\" (Gen 23:6), and in their God they acknowledged the most high God, the Creator of heaven and earth (Gen 14:19, Gen 14:22). Thus, when Moses was sent to Pharaoh to announce to him the will of God regarding the departure of the people of Israel, and when Pharaoh refused to listen to the will of God, his land and his people were so struck by the wonders of the divine omnipotence, that not only the Egyptians learned to fear the God of Israel, but the fear and dread of Him also fell on the princes of Edom and Moab, and on all the inhabitants of Canaan (Exo 15:14.). Afterwards, when Israel came to the borders of Canaan, and the king of Moab, in conjunction with the princes of Midian, brought the famed soothsayer Balaam out of Mesopotamia that he might destroy the people of God with his curse, Balaam was constrained to predict, according to the will of God, to the king and his counsellors the victorious power of Israel over all their enemies, and the subjection of all the heathen nations (Num 22-24). In the age succeeding, God the Lord showed Himself to the nations, as often as they assailed Israel contrary to His will, as an almighty God who can destroy all His enemies; and even the Israelitish prisoners of war were the means of making known to the heathen the great name of the God of Israel, as the history of the cure of Naaman the Syrian by means of Elisha shows (2 Kings 5). This knowledge of the living, all-powerful God could not but be yet more spread abroad among the heathen by the leading away captive of the tribes of Israel and of Judah into Assyria and Chaldea.\n\nBut fully to prepare, by the exile, the people of Israel as well as the heathen world for the appearance of the Saviour of all nations and for the reception of the gospel, the Lord raised up prophets, who not only preached His law and His justice among the covenant people scattered among the heathen, and made more widely known the counsel of His grace, but also bore witness by word and deed, in the presence of the heathen rulers of the world, of the omnipotence and glory of God, the Lord of heaven and earth. This mission was discharged by Ezekiel and Daniel. God placed the prophet Ezekiel among his exiled fellow-countrymen as a watchman over the house of Israel, that he might warn the godless, proclaim to them continually the judgment which would fall upon them and destroy their vain hopes of a speedy liberation from bondage and a return to their fatherland; but to the God-fearing, who were bowed down under the burden of their sorrows and were led to doubt the covenant faithfulness of God, he was commissioned to testify the certain fulfilment of the predictions of the earlier prophets as to the restoration and bringing to its completion of the kingdom of God. A different situation was appointed by God to Daniel. His duty was to proclaim before the throne of the rulers of this world the glory of the God of Israel as the God of heaven and earth, in opposition to false gods; to announce to those invested with worldly might and dominion the subjugation of all the kingdoms of this world by the everlasting kingdom of God; and to his own people the continuance of their afflictions under the oppression of the world-power, as well as the fulfilment of the gracious counsels of God through the blotting out of all sin, the establishment of an everlasting righteousness, the fulfilling of all the prophecies, and the setting up of a true holy of holies.\n\nIII. The Contents and Arrangement of the Book of Daniel\n\nThe book begins (Daniel 1) with the account of Daniel's being carried away to Babylon, his appointment and education for the service of the court of the Chaldean king by a three years' course of instruction in the literature and wisdom of the Chaldeans, and his entrance on service in the king's palace. This narrative, by its closing (Dan 1:21) statement that Daniel continued in this office till the first year of king Cyrus, and still more by making manifest his firm fidelity to the law of the true God and his higher enlightenment in the meaning of dreams and visions granted to him on account of this fidelity, as well as by the special mention of his three like-minded friends, is to be regarded as a historico-biographical introduction to the book, showing how Daniel, under the divine guidance, was prepared, along with his friends, for that calling in which, as prophet at the court of the rulers of the world, he might bear testimony to the o","order":27,"numberOfChapters":12,"sha256":"6946580d2533659a816e1fe7ee4c8b0e1df77023c7f2ae234c607671a12c44e7","firstChapterNumber":1,"firstChapterApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/DAN/1.json","firstChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"DAN","chapter":1},"lastChapterNumber":12,"lastChapterApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/DAN/12.json","lastChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"DAN","chapter":12},"totalNumberOfVerses":116},"chapter":{"number":10,"content":[{"type":"verse","number":1,"content":["The Theophany - Daniel 10-11:2a \nThe Introduction to the Following Manifestation of God - Dan 10:1-3\nThis verse is to be regarded as an inscription or general statement of the substance of it. Therefore Daniel speaks of himself in the third person, as in Dan 7:1, and in the historical portions Daniel 1-6. The definition of the time, \"In the first year of Cores (Cyrus) king of Persia,\" refers us back to Dan 1:21, but it does not, as has been there already remarked, stand in contradiction to the first year of Cyrus named there. דּבר is the following revelation, which was communicated to the prophet not by a vision (חזון), but by a manifestation of God (מראה), and was given in the form of simple human discourse. The remark regarding Daniel, \"whose name was Belteshazzar,\" is designed only to make it obvious that the Daniel of the third year of Cyrus was the same who was carried by Babylon in the first year of Nebuchadnezzar (seventy-two years before). To the question why Daniel did not return to his native land in the first year of Cyrus, which Hitzig has thus formulated for the purpose of framing an argument against the genuineness of this prophecy - \"How could he, who was a pattern of piety (Dan 1:8; Eze 14:14), so disregard the opportunity that was offered and the summons of Isaiah (Isa 48:20; Isa 52:11.) as if he stood on the side of those who forgot the holy mountain?\" (Isa 65:11) - the supposition of his advanced old age (Hv.) is no sufficient answer. For, on the contrary, Hitzig has rightly replied that old men also, such as had even seen the former temple, had returned home (Ezr 3:12), and Daniel was not so infirm as to be unable for the journey. The correct answer is rather this, that Daniel, because divine revelations had been communicated to him, had obtained a position at the court of the world-rulers in which he was able to do much for the good of his people, and might not, without a special divine injunction, leave this place; that he thus, not from indifference toward the holy mountain or from neglect of the injunctions to flee from Babylon (Isa 48:20; Isa 52:11.), but from obedience to God, and for the furtherance of the cause of His kingdom, remained at his post till the Lord His God should call him away from it.\nIn the second hemistich the contents of this new divine revelation are characterized. הדּבר with the article points back to דּבר in the first half of the verse. Of this \"word\" Daniel says that it contains אמת and גּדול צבא. In the statement that \"the thing was true,\" Hitzig finds an intimation that thereby the author betrays his standpoint, namely, the time when \"the thing\" was realized, for Daniel could not say this before it happened. But this objection supposes that the author was a lying prophet, who spoke from his own heart (Jer 29:8, Jer 29:15). But if Daniel had actually received a \"word\" from God, he could before its fulfilment testify its truth. The testimony to the truth of the word here indicates, as it does in Dan 8:26 in the mouth of the angel, that the word of God now communicated to the prophet contained things which it would be difficult for the human heart to believe. The second predicate גּדול צבא shows in what respect this is so. For that these words do not, with the lxx and Aquil., refer to what follows is obvious, as is acknowledged by all modern interpreters. צבא, warfare, military service, then the difficulty of this service, and figuratively difficulty, afflictions of life, Job 7:1; Job 10:17, and also here. \"The word is, i.e., concerns, has as its contents, great afflictions\" [E.V. \"the time appointed was long\"].\nIn the last clause of this verse בּין and בינה are not the imperative (v. Lengerke), because a summons to give heed, or understand, would not be here in place. בינה is a substantive, and the throwing of the accent on the penultima is occasioned by the accented לו which follows. בּין is the 3rd pers. perf., not the infinitive (Hv.). Understanding was to him בּמּראה, by that which was seen, i.e., by the appearance described in Dan 10:5. בּמּראה cannot at all be referred (Klief.) to the earlier prophecies of Dan 8:7, Dan 8:9. The statement in these two passages serves for the confirmation of that which was said regarding the contents of the word from God, and stands in relation to Dan 8:27, where Daniel was troubled because no one understood the vision. He was helped out of this state of non-understanding by the following revelation, cf. Dan 10:14. But the objection that it cannot be here said that Daniel understood the word, because he himself, Dan 12:8, says that he did not understand it, has been disposed of by Kliefoth, who justly remarks that the non-understanding in Dan 12:8 regards a single point, namely, the duration of the affliction, regarding which, however, disclosures are given to the prophet in Dan 12:10. The translation: \"he heard the word, and understood the vision\" (Kran.), is set aside by this circumstance, that it takes בּין in a different sense from בינה, contrary to the parallelism of the passages. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":2,"content":["Dan 10:2, Dan 10:3 introduce the following revelation by a statement of the occasion of it. ההם בּימים refers back to the date named in Dan 10:1. The ימים after שׁבעים does not serve to designate the three weeks as common day-weeks, in contrast to the שׁבעים of Dan 9:24., but is an accusative subordinated to the definition of time which expresses the idea of continuance: three weeks long, or three whole weeks, as Gen 41:1; cf. Gesen. Gramm. 118, 3. For three weeks Daniel mourned and fasted, i.e., abstained from the usual food. חמות לחם, precious food, delicacies; but Hv., v. Leng., Maur., Hitz., and Kran. interpret it of leavened bread, so called in contrast to the unleavened paschal bread, the bread of affliction (Deu 16:3). But this contrast is not well founded, for the מצּות (unleavened cakes) of the passover was not (notwithstanding Deu 16:3) bread of sorrow, but pure, holy bread, which Daniel did not eat, in opposition to the law, for three weeks. לחם is not to be limited to bread in its narrower sense, but denotes food generally. Flesh and wine are festival food, Isa 22:13; Gen 27:25, which is not had every day. The anointing with oil was the sign of joy and of a joyous frame of mind, as with guests at a banquet, Amo 6:6, and was intermitted in the time of sorrow; cf. Sa2 14:2. Fasting, as an abstaining from the better sustenance of common life, was the outward sign of sorrow of soul.\nAccording to Dan 10:4, Daniel mourned and fasted in the first month of the year, the month in the middle of which the paschal feast was kept, in which Israel celebrated their deliverance from their state of slavery in Egypt and their advancement to be the people of God, and were joyful before their God. On the 24th day of this month occurred the Theophany (Dan 10:4.), with which, however, his fasting came to an end. According to this, it appears that he fasted from the third to the twenty-third of the month Nisan; thus it began immediately after the feast of the new moon, which was kept for two days (cf. Sa1 20:18., 27, 34 with 6:29; Dan 2:19). Thus Hv. and Hitzig conclude; while v. Leng. and Maurer argue, from Dan 10:13, that between the time of fasting and the appearance of the angel an interval elapsed, consequently that Daniel fasted from the first to the twenty-first of the month Nisan. But from Dan 10:13 nothing further follows than that the angel was detained twenty-one days; so that the question as to the beginning and the end of the fast is not certainly answered from the text, and, as being irrelevant to the matter, it can remain undecided. More important is the question as to the cause of such long-continued great sorrow, which is not answered by the remark that he was thus prepared for receiving a divine revelation. According to Dan 10:12, Daniel sought הבּין, i.e., understanding as to the state of the matter, or regarding the future of his people, which filled him with concern. The word about the restoration of Jerusalem which he had received through the angel Gabriel in the first year of Darius (Daniel 9) had come to pass since that revelation in the first year of Cyrus, but had had only little effect on the religious lukewarmness of the majority of the people. Of the whole people only a very small portion had returned to the land of their fathers, and had begun, after restoring the altar of burnt-offering, to build the house of God in Jerusalem. But while the foundation of the new temple was laid, there mingled with the joyful shoutings of the people also the loud wailings of the old men who had seen the former temple in its glory, when they beheld this building undertaken amid circumstances so depressing and sorrowful (Ezr 3:1-13). In addition to this, the Samaritans immediately, when the Jewish rulers refused for conscience sake to permit them to take part with them in the building, sought, by means of influences used at the Persian court, to prevent the carrying on of the building (Ezr 4:1-5). This sad state of matters could not but, at the beginning of the new year, fill the heart of Daniel with deep sorrow, and move him at the return of the time of the passover to mourn in fasting and prayer over the delay of the salvation promised to his people, and to supplicate in behalf of Israel the pardon of their sins, and their deliverance out of the hand of their enemies. Therefore he mourned and fasted before and during the paschal days for three weeks, until on the twenty-fourth day of the month he received a revelation from God. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":4,"content":["The Theophany. - On the day named Daniel found himself on the side (banks) of the river Hiddekel, i.e., the Tigris (see under Gen 2:14), along with some who accompanied him (Dan 10:7); thus he was there in reality, and not merely in vision as at the Ulai, Dan 8:2. For what purpose he was there is not said. Here he saw a celestial being, whose form is described, Dan 10:5, Dan 10:6. It was a man (אחד, one, not several) clothed in בּדּים, i.e., in a talar of shining white linen (regarding בּדּים, see under Eze 9:2), and his loins girt about with gold of Uphaz. אוּפז occurs nowhere else, except in Jer 10:9 : gold of Uphaz and silver of Tarshish, from which we must conclude that Uphaz is the name of a region, a country, probably only a dialectically different form for אופיר; the combination with the Sanscr. vipa - Hyphasis is, on the other hand, very far-fetched. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":6,"content":["His body shone like תּרשׁישׁ, i.e., the chrysolite of the Old and the topaz of the New Testament (see under Eze 1:16); his countenance had the appearance of lightning, his eyes as lamps of fire, his arms and the place of his feet like the sight of polished brass (קלל, see under Eze 1:7).מרגּלות, place of the feet, does not stand for feet, but denotes that part of the human frame where the feet are; and the word indicates that not the feet alone, but the under parts of the body shone like burnished brass. The voice of his words, i.e., the sound of his speaking, was like המון קול, for which in Eze 1:24 המלּה קול (the voice of noise), and by מחנה קול (Eze 1:24) the noise of a host is denoted.\nThis heavenly form has thus, it is true, the shining white talar common to the angel, Eze 9:9, but all the other features, as here described - the shining of his body, the brightness of his countenance, his eyes like a lamp of fire, arms and feet like glistering brass, the sound of his speaking-all these point to the revelation of the יהוה כּבוד, the glorious appearance of the Lord, Ezekiel 1, and teach us that the אישׁ seen by Daniel was no common angel-prince, but a manifestation of Jehovah, i.e., the Logos. This is placed beyond a doubt by a comparison with Rev 1:13-15, where the form of the Son of man whom John saw walking in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks is described like the glorious appearance seen by Ezekiel and Daniel.\nThe place where this heavenly being was, is not here specially stated. In Dan 12:6 he appears hovering over the waters of the river, the Tigris. This agrees also with the verse before us, according to which Daniel, while standing on the banks of the river, on lifting up his eyes beheld the vision. Hence it further follows, that the אישׁ seen here by Daniel is the same heavenly being whose voice he heard, Dan 8:16, from the waters of the Ulai, without seeing his form.\nWhen now he whose voice Daniel heard from thence presents himself before him here on the Tigris in a majesty which human nature is not able to endure, and announces to him the future, and finally, Dan 12:6., with a solemn oath attests the completion of the divine counsel, he thereby shows himself, as C. B. Michaelis ad Daniel p. 372, Schmieder in Gerlach's Bibelw., and Oehler (Art. Messias in Herz.'s Realenc. ix. p. 417) have acknowledged, to be the Angel of Jehovah κατ ̓ἐξοχὴν, as the \"Angel of His presence.\" The combination of this angel with that in the form of a son of man appearing in the clouds (Dan 7:13) is natural; and this combination is placed beyond a doubt by the comparison with Rev 1:13, where John sees the glorified Christ, who is described by a name definitely referring to Dan 7:13, as ὅμοιον υἱῷ ἀνθρώπου.\nOn the other hand, the opinion maintained to some extent among the Rabbis, which even Hengstenberg has in modern times advocated (Beitr. i. p. 165ff.; Christol. iii. 2, p. 50ff.), namely, that the angel of the Lord who here appears to Daniel in divine majesty is identical with the angel-prince Michael, has no support in Scripture, and stands in contradiction to Dan 10:13, Dan 10:21, where he who speaks is certainly distinguished from Michael, for here there is ascribed to Michael a position with reference to the people of God which is not appropriate to the Angel of the Lord or the Logos. It is true, indeed, that Hengstenberg holds, with many old interpreters, that he who speaks with Daniel, Dan 10:11, and reveals to him the future, is different from him who appears to him, Dan 10:5, Dan 10:6, and is identical with the angel Gabriel. But the reasons advanced in support of this are not sufficient. The latter supposition is grounded partly on the similarity of the address to Daniel, חמות אישׁ, Dan 10:11, Dan 10:19, cf. with Dan 9:23, partly on the similarity of the circumstances, Dan 8:17-18, cf. with Dan 10:10 and Dan 12:5. But the address to Daniel חמות אישׁ proves nothing, because it does not express to Daniel the relation of the angel to him, but of the Lord who sent the angel; and Gabriel in Dan 9:23 does not address the prophet thus, but only says that he is המדות, i.e., a man greatly beloved of God. The similarity of circumstances with Dan 8:17-18 proves nothing further than that he who appeared was a heavenly being. More noticeable is the similarity of Dan 8:13 with Dan 12:5, so far as in both cases two angels appear along with him who hovers over the waters, and the voice from above the waters in Dan 8:16 directs the angel Gabriel to explain the vision to the prophet. But from the circumstance that in Daniel 8 and also in Daniel 9 Gabriel gives to the prophet disclosures regarding the future, it by no means follows, even on the supposition that he who is represented in the chapter before us as speaking is different from him who appears in Dan 10:5, Dan 10:6, that the angel who speaks is Gabriel. If he were Gabriel, he would have been named here, according to the analogy of Dan 10:9, Dan 10:21.\nTo this is to be added, that the assumed difference between him who speaks, Dan 10:11, and him who appears, Dan 10:5, Dan 10:6, is not made out, nor yet is it on the whole demonstrable. It is true that in favour of this difference, he who speaks is on the banks of the river where Daniel stands, while he who appears, vv. 5, 6, and also at the end of the vision, Dan 12:1-13, is in the midst of the Tigris, and in Dan 10:5 of this chapter (Dan 12:1-13) two other persons are standing on the two banks of the river, one of whom asks him who is clothed with linen, as if in the name of Daniel, when the things announced shall happen. Now if we assume that he who is clothed in linen is no other than he who speaks to Daniel, v. 11, then one of these two persons becomes a κωφὸν πρόσωπον, and it cannot be at all seen for what purpose he appears. If, on the contrary, the difference of the two is assumed, then each has his own function. The Angel of the Lord is present in silent majesty, and only by a brief sentence confirms the words of his messenger (Dan 12:7). The one of those standing on the banks is he who, as the messenger and interpreter of the Angel of the Lord, had communicated all disclosures regarding the future to Daniel as he stood by the banks. The third, the angel standing on the farther bank, directs the question regarding the duration of the time to the Angel of the Lord. Thus Hengstenberg is in harmony with C. B. Michaelis and others.\nBut however important these reasons for the difference appears, yet we cannot regard them as conclusive. From the circumstance that, Dan 10:10, a hand touched Daniel as he was sinking down in weakness and set him on his knees, it does not with certainty follow that this was the hand of the angel (Gabriel) who stood by Daniel, who spoke to him, Dan 10:11. The words of the text, \"a hand touched me,\" leave the person whose hand it was altogether undefined; and also in Dan 10:16, Dan 10:18, where Daniel is again touched, so that he was able to open his mouth and was made capable of hearing the words that were addressed to him, the person from whom the touch proceeded is altogether indefinite. The designations, אדם בּני כּדּמוּת, like the similitude of the sons of men, Dan 10:16, and אדם כּמראה, like the appearance of a man, Dan 10:18, do not point to a definite angel who appears speaking in the sequel. But the circumstance that in Dan 12:1-13, besides the form that hovered over the water, other two angels appear on the banks, does not warrant us to assume that these two angels were already present or visible in Dan 10:5. The words, \"Then I looked and saw other two, the one,\" etc., Dan 12:5, much rather indicate that the scene was changed, that Daniel now for the first time saw the two angels on the banks. In Daniel 10 he only sees him who is clothed with linen, and was so terrified by this \"great sight\" that he fell powerless to the ground on hearing his voice, and was only able to stand up after a hand had touched him and a comforting word had been spoken to him. Nothing is here, as in Dan 8:15, said of the coming of the angel. If thus, after mention being made of the hand which by touching him set him on his knees, it is further said, \"and he spake to me ... \" (Dan 10:11), the context only leads to this conclusion, that he who spake to him was the man whose appearance and words had so overwhelmed him. To suppose another person, or an angel different from the one who was clothed with linen, as speaking, could only be justified if the contents of that which was spoken demanded such a supposition.\nHe who spake said, among other things, that he was sent to Daniel (Dan 10:11); that the prince of the kingdom of Persia had withstood him one and twenty days; and that Michael, one of the chief angel-princes, had come to his help (Dan 10:13, Dan 10:21). These statements do not indicate that he was an inferior angel, but they are suitable to the Angel of the Lord; for he also says (Zac 2:13, 15; Zac 4:9) that he is sent by Jehovah; cf. also Isa 48:16 and Isa 61:1. The coming to his help by the angel-prince Michael, also, does not denote that he who speaks was an angel subordinated to the archangel Michael. In Zac 1:15 עזר denotes help which men render to God; and in Ch1 12:21. it is related that Israelites of different tribes came to David to help him against his enemies, i.e., under his leadership to fight for him. Similarly we may suppose that the angel Michael gave help to the Angel of the Lord against the prince of the kingdom of Persia.\nThere thus remains only the objection, that if we take the angel clothed with linen and him who speaks as the same, then in Dan 12:5 one of the angels who stood on the two banks of the Tigris becomes a κωφὸν πρόσωπον; but if we are not able to declare the object for which two angels appear there, yet the one of those two angels cannot certainly be the same as he who announced, Daniel 10 and 11, the future to the prophet, because these angels are expressly designated as two others (אהרים שׁנים), and the אהרים excludes the identifying of these with angels that previously appeared to Daniel. This argument is not set aside by the reply that the angels standing on the two banks of the river are spoken of as אהרים with reference to the Angel of the Lord, Dan 10:6, for the reference of the אהרים to that which follows is inconsistent with the context; see under Dan 12:5.\nThus every argument utterly fails that has been adduced in favour of the supposition that he who speaks, Dan 10:11, is different from him who is clothed in linen; and we are warranted to abide by the words of the narrative, which in Daniel 10 names no other angel than the man clothed with linen, who must on that account be the same as he who speaks and announces the future to the prophet. The hand which again set him up by touching him, is, it is true, to be thought of as proceeding from an angel; but it is not more definitely described, because this angel is not further noticed. But after the man clothed with linen has announced the future to the prophet, the scene changes (Dan 12:5). Daniel sees the same angels over the waters of the Tigris, and standing on the two banks of the river. Where he who was clothed in linen stands, is left indefinite in the narrative. If from the first it is he who hovers over the water of the river, he could yet talk with the prophet standing on its banks. But it is also possible that at first he was visible close beside the banks. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":7,"content":["According to this verse, the form described in Dan 10:5 and Dan 10:6 was visible to Daniel alone. His companions saw not the appearance, but they were so alarmed by the invisible nearness of the heavenly being that they fled and hid themselves. What is here said resembles Act 9:3., where Christ, after His exaltation, appeared to Paul and spoke to him - Paul's companions hearing only the voice, but seeing no one. In order to account for the flight of Daniel's companions, it is not necessary to suppose the existence of thunder and lightning, of which the text makes no mention. The supposition also of Theodor. and Hitzig, that the men indeed saw not the angel, but that they heard his voice, is incorrect; for the voice was not heard till after his companions had fled. המּראה, pointed as fem., that which was seen, the appearance, seems to be a more limited conception than מראה, visio. בּהחבא יברחוּ: they fled, for they hid themselves; so that the hiding is not to be regarded as the object of the fleeing, but the fleeing is made known in their hiding themselves. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":8,"content":["Daniel here calls the appearance great with reference to the majesty displayed, such as had never hitherto been known to him. Its influence upon him is, therefore, also greater than that of the appearance of Gabriel, Dan 8:17. There remained in him no strength, i.e., he felt himself overwhelmed, and as if about to perish. His הוד, splendour - the same as the Chald. זיו, Dan 7:28; Dan 5:6, Dan 5:9 - i.e., the fresh colour of life which marked his countenance, was changed למשׁחית, properly, to destruction, to entire disfigurement, to corruption. The last clause, \"and I retained no strength,\" gives greater force to the preceding statement. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":9,"content":["When Daniel heard the voice, which according to v. 6 was like the noise of a multitude, he was stunned, and fell on his face to the ground, as Dan 8:17. Yet the expression here, נרדּם הייתי, is stronger than נבעתּי, Dan 8:17. Dan 10:10 shows how great was his amazement in the further description it gives. The touching of him by an unseen hand raised him up and caused him to reel on his knees and hands (תּניעני, vacillare me fecit), but did not enable him to stand erect. This he was first able to do after he heard the comfortable words, and was directed to mark the communication of the heavenly messenger. Regarding חמות אישׁ see under Dan 9:23, and for עמדך על עמד see at Dan 8:18. He now raises himself up, but still trembling (מרעיד). The עתּה now am I sent to thee, points to the delay of his coming spoken of in Dan 10:12. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":12,"content":["According to this verse, the words of Daniel, i.e., his prayer from the first day of his seeking to understand the future, and of his self-mortification in sorrow and fasting (Dan 10:2, Dan 10:3), was heard of God, and the angel was immediately sent forth by God to convey to him revelations. And, he adds, בּדבריך בּאתי, I am come for thy words, i.e., in consequence of thy prayer, according to it. The בּאתי most interpreters understand of the coming to Daniel; Hofmann (Schriftbew. i. p. 331) and Kliefoth, on the contrary, understand it of the coming of the angel to Persia (Dan 10:13). According to the matter, both views are correct, but in the form in which they are presented they are incorrect. Against the latter stands the adversative וin ושׂר (but the prince), Dan 10:13, by which the contents of Dan 10:13 are introduced; for, according to this, Dan 10:13 cannot represent the object of the coming. Against the former stands the fact, that the angel does not come to Daniel immediately, but only after having gained a victory over the prince of the kingdom. The בּאתי is again taken up in Dan 10:14, and must have here the same meaning that it has there. But in Dan 10:14 it is connected with להבינך, \"I am come to bring thee understanding,\" in Dan 10:12 with בּדבריך, which only denotes that the \"coming\" corresponded to Daniel's prayer, but not that he came immediately to him. Daniel had, without doubt, prayed for the accomplishment of the salvation promised to his people, and eo ipso for the removal of all the hindrances that stood in the way of that accomplishment. The hearing of his prayer may be regarded, therefore, as containing in it not merely the fact that God directed an angel to convey to him disclosures regarding the future fortunes of his people, but also at the same time as implying that on the side of God steps were taken for the removal of these hindrances.\nThe thirteenth verse speaks of this, not as denoting that the angel came to Persia for the purpose of working for Israel, but much rather as announcing the reason of the twenty-one days' delay in the coming of the angel to Daniel, in the form of a parenthetical clause. His coming to Daniel was hindered by this, that the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood him twenty-one days. The twenty-one days are those three weeks of Daniel's fasting and prayer, Dan 10:2. Hence we see that the coming of the angel had its reference to Daniel, for he came to bring him a comforting answer from God; but in order that he might be able to do this, he must first, according to Dan 10:13, enter into war with and overcome the spirit of the king of Persia, hostile to the people of God. The contents of Dan 10:13 are hence not to be understood as showing that the angel went to Persia in order that he might there arrange the cause of Israel with the king; the verse much rather speaks of a war in the kingdom of the supernatural spirits, which could not relate to the court of the king of Persia. The prince (שׂר) of the kingdom of Persia, briefly designated in Dan 10:21 \"the prince of Persia,\" is not king Cyrus, or the collectivum of the kings of Persia, as Hv. and Kran., with Calvin and most of the Reformers, think, but the guardian spirit or the protecting genius of the Persian kingdom, as the Rabbis and most of the Christian interpreters have rightly acknowledged. For the angel that appeared to Daniel did not fight with the kings of Persia, but with a spiritual intelligence of a like nature, for the victory, or precedence with the kings of Persia. This spirit of the kingdom of Persia, whom, after the example of Jerome, almost all interpreters call the guardian angel of his kingdom, is as little the nature-power of this kingdom as Michael is the nature-power of Israel, but is a spirit-being; yet not the heathen national god of the Persians, but, according to the view of Scripture (Co1 10:20.), the δαιμόνιον of the Persian kingdom, i.e., the supernatural spiritual power standing behind the national gods, which we may properly call the guardian spirit of this kingdom. In the לנגדּי עמד lies, according to the excellent remark of Kliefoth, the idea, that \"the שׂר of the kingdom of Persian stood beside the kings of the Persians to influence them against Israel, and to direct against Israel the power lying in Persian heathendom, so as to support the insinuations of the Samaritans; that the angel, Dan 10:5, came on account of Daniel's prayer to dislodge this 'prince' from his position and deprive him of his influence, but he kept his place for twenty-one days, till Michael came to his help; then he so gained the mastery over him, that he now stood in his place beside the kings of Persia, so as henceforth to influence them in favour of Israel.\" He who appeared to Daniel, Dan 10:5, and spake with him, Dan 10:11, is not \"the angel who had his dominion among the nations of the world,\" or \"his sphere of action in the embodiments of the heathen world-power, to which the Jewish people were now in subjection, to promote therein the working out of God's plan of salvation\" (Hofm. Schriftbew. i. p. 334). This supposition is destitute of support from the Scriptures. It is rather the Angel of the Lord who carries out God's plans in the world, and for their accomplishment and execution makes war against the hostile spirit of the heathen world-power. The subjugation of this spirit supposes a particular angel ruling in the heathen world just as little as Jehovah's contending against the heathen nations that oppress and persecute His kingdom and people.\nIn the war against the hostile spirit of the kingdom of Persia, the archangel Michael came to the help of the Angel of the Lord. The name מיכאל, who is as God, comes into view, as does the name Gabriel, only according to the appellative signification of the word, and expresses, after the analogy of Exo 15:11; Psa 89:7., the idea of God's unparalleled helping power. Michael is thus the angel possessing the unparalleled power of God. He is here said to be \"one of the chief princes,\" i.e., of the highest angel-princes, - Dan 10:21, \"your prince,\" i.e., the prince who contends for Israel, who conducts the cause of Israel. The first title points undoubtedly to an arrangement of orders and degrees among the angels, designating Michael as one of the most distinguished of the angel-princes; hence called in Jde 1:9 ἀρχάγγελος, also in Rev 12:7, where he is represented as contending with his angels against the dragon. The opinion that Michael is called \"one of the chief princes,\" not as in contrast with the angels, but only with the demons of the heathen gods (Kliefoth), is opposed by the words themselves and by the context. From the circumstance that the guardian spirit of Persia is called שׂר it does not follow that שׂרים is not a designation of the angels generally, but only of the princes of the people, who are the spirits ruling in the social affairs of nations and kingdoms (Hofmann, p. 337); and even though this conclusion may be granted, this meaning for השׂרים with the article and the predicate הראשׁנים is undemonstrable. For the Scripture does not place the demon-powers of heathendom so on a line with the angels that both are designated as ראשׁנים שׂרים. The ראשׁנים שׁרים can only be the princes, chiefs, of the good angels remaining in communion with God, and working for the kingdom of God. Though what is said by the angel Michael, for the sake of the Israelitish people, among whom he has the sphere of his activity, may be said for their comfort, yet it does not follow therefrom that that which is said \"cannot give disclosures regarding the relation within the angel-world, but only regarding the relation to the great historical nations and powers of the world\" (Hofm. p. 338). For as regards the statement adduced in support of this opinion - \"the greatness and importance of the work entrusted to him makes him one of the ראשׁנים, not that the work is entrusted to him because he is so\" - just the contrary is true. To a subordinate spirit God will not entrust a work demanding special power and greatness; much rather the being entrusted with a great and important work supposes a man exalted above the common mass. And for the comforting of Israel the words, \"Michael, one of the foremost princes, came to my help,\" affirm that Israel is under very powerful protection, because its guardian spirit is one of the foremost of the angel-princes, whereby implic. it is said at the same time that the people, though they be little esteemed before the world, yet cannot be destroyed by the nations of the world. This thought follows as a conclusion from what is said regarding the dignity of their guardian angel, but it does not form the contents of the saying regarding Michael and his place among the heavenly spirits.\nBut we learn from Dan 10:21 the reason why the archangel Michael, and no other angel, came to the help of him who was clothed with linen. It was because Michael was the prince of Israel, i.e., \"the high angel-prince who had to maintain the cause of the people of God in the invisible spirit-world against opposing powers\" (Auberlen, p. 289); and as such he appears also in Jde 1:9 and Rev 12:7. The coming of Michael to give help does not include in it this, that he was superior in might or in position to the angel that spake, and thus supplies no proof that the angel that spake was Gabriel, or an angel different from him who was clothed with linen. For even a subordinate servant can bring help to his master, and in a conflict render him aid in gaining the victory. Against the idea of the subjection of Michael to the angel that spake, or the man clothed with linen, stands the further unfolding of the angel's message, the statement in Dan 10:21 and Dan 11:1, according to which the angel that spake gave strength and help to Michael in the first year of the Median Darius, from which we have more reason to conclude that the angel who spake stood above the angel Michael; see under Dan 11:1.\nIn consequence of the assistance on the part of Michael, the Angel of the Lord obtained the place of superiority by the side of the king of Persia. נותר has not here the usual meaning, to be over and above, to remain, but is to be translated after הותיר, Gen 49:4, to have the pre-eminence, to excel, in the passive signification of the Hiphil: \"to be provided with the preference, to gain the superiority.\" The translation, \"I have maintained the place\" (Hofm.), cannot be proved. אצל, at the side of, near, is explained from the idea of the protecting spirit standing by the side of his protege. The plural, \"kings of Persia,\" neither refers to Cyrus and Cambyses, nor to Cyrus and the conquered kings living with him (Croesus, etc.), nor to Cyrus and the prince, i.e., his guardian spirit (Hitzig). The plural denotes, that by the subjugation of the demon of the Persian kingdom, his influence not merely over Cyrus, but over all the following kings of Persia, was brought to an end, so that the whole of the Persian kings became accessible to the influence of the spirit proceeding from God and advancing the welfare of Israel. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":14,"content":["With this joyful message the angel comes to Daniel, to open up to him what would befall his people in the last time. The punctuation of יקרה (shall befall) is according to יקרא (Gen 49:1); the Kethiv יקרה has the correct form. חימים בּאחרית as Dan 2:28, the Messianic world-time, in Dan 8:17 is called the time of the end. \"For,\" the angel adds, \"the vision refers, or stretches itself out, to the days.\" ליּמים, with the article, are the days of the אחרית (the latter time), the Messianic world-time. חזון is the revelation which in Dan 10:1 is called דּבר and מראה, the following revelation in Daniel 11. Kliefoth is incorrect in thinking on the revelations already given, Daniel 7, 8, 9, to Daniel, regarding which the angel now seeks to bring to him further understanding. For although those revelations stretch out to the last time, and the revelations in Daniel 11 only give further disclosures regarding it, yet neither does the angel who speaks to Daniel here thus represent the matter, nor does the form of the revelation Daniel 10-12, namely, the majestic appearance of the Angel of the Lord, not a common angel-revelation, correspond with this supposition. חזון also cannot, without further definition, refer to those earlier revelations; and the opinion that הבּין denotes the understanding, as distinguished from the revelation or proclamation, does not accord with the usual style of Daniel's language. הבּין denotes here, as in Dan 8:16, the interpretation of the vision, which in both cases contains the things which shall befall the people of God in the future. Cf. Dan 9:22, where יבּין is used of the announcement of the revelation of God regarding the seventy weeks. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":15,"content":["In these verses it is further related how Daniel was gradually raised up and made capable of receiving the revelation of God. The communication of the angel hitherto had not fully gained this object. Daniel \"stood trembling,\" but he could not yet speak. With his face bent towards the earth he was as yet speechless. Then one having the likeness of a man touched his lips, whereby he received the power of speech, and could address him who stood before him, and utter the complaint: \"By the vision anguish, i.e., violent terror, has fallen upon me: woes are turned upon me.\" For this style of speech cf. Sa1 4:19, and for the matter itself, cf. Isa 21:3; Isa 13:8. For the following כּח עצרתּי ולא (and I have no strength, Dan 10:16), cf. Dan 10:8. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":17,"content":["Therefore he may not talk with this Lord, i.e., with Him who appeared before him in such dread majesty; and he is yet in such a state, since all strength has departed from him and his breath has gone, that he fears he must die; cf. Kg1 17:17. Then once more one like the appearance of a man touched him. אדם כּמראה is in reality = אדם בּני כּדּמוּת: both forms of expression leave the person of him who touched him undefined, and only state that the touching proceeded from some one who was like a man, or that it was such as proceeds from men, and are like the expression used in Dan 10:19, \"a hand touched me.\" From this it does not follow that he who spoke to him touched him, but only that it was a spiritual being, who appeared like to a man. After thus being touched for the third time (Dan 10:18), the encouragement of the angel that talked with him imparted to him full strength, so that he could calmly listen to and observe his communication. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":20,"content":["But before he communicated to Daniel what would befall his people in the \"latter days\" (Dan 10:14), he gives to him yet further disclosures regarding the proceedings in the spirit-kingdom which determine the fate of nations, and contain for Israel, in the times of persecution awaiting them, the comforting certainty that they had in the Angel of the Lord and in the guardian angel Michael a strong protection against the enmities of the heathen world. Kliefoth supposes that the angel who speaks in v. 20 - Daniel 11:1 gives a brief resum of the contents of his previous statement (Dan 10:12-14). But it is not so. These verses, 10:20-11:1, contain new disclosures not yet made known in Dan 11:12-19, although resembling the contents of Dan 10:13. Of the coming of the prince of Javan (v. 20b), and the help which the angel-prince renders to Darius (Dan 11:1), nothing is said in Dan 10:13; also what the Angel of the Lord, Dan 10:20, says regarding the conflict with the prince of Persia is different from that which is said in Dan 10:13. In Dan 10:13 he speaks of that which he has done before his coming to Daniel; in Dan 10:20, of that which he will now do. To the question, \"Knowest thou wherefore I come unto thee?\" no answer follows; it has, however, an affirmative sense, and is only an animated mode of address to remind Daniel of that which is said in Dan 10:12-14, and to impress it upon him as weighty and worthy of consideration. Then follows the new communication: \"and now will I return to fight with the prince of Persia,\" i.e., to carry forward and bring to an end the victory gained for thee before my arrival over the demon of Persia, the spirit of the Persian kingdom.\nThe words which follow, 'וגו והנּה יוצא ואני (v. 20b, and when I am gone forth, lo, etc.), present some difficulty. The ואני in comparison with אשׁוּב (will I return) points to a contrast, and והנּה plainly indicates that which shall begin with the יוצא אני. By this, the union of the יוצא ואני with that which goes before and the adversative interpretation of והנּה (v. Leng.) is excluded. But יוצא is interpreted differently. Hvernick, Maurer, and others understand it of going forth to war; only we must not then think (with Maurer) of the war against the prince of Persia. \"For he will do that even now (in the third year of Cyrus), and at this time the coming of the prince of Grecia has no meaning\" (Hitzig). Hofmann and Hitzig understand, therefore, יוצא, in contrast to בּא, of a going forth from the conflict, as in Kg2 11:7 \"they shall go forth on the Sabbath\" is placed over against \"that enter in on the Sabbath\" in Kg2 11:5; but in an entirely different sense. Hitzig thus renders the clause: \"when I have done with the Persians, and am on the point of departing, then shall the king of Grecia rise up against me.\" יון must then be the Seleucidan kingdom, and the שׂר the guardian spirit of Egypt - suppositions which need no refutation, while the interpretation of the words themselves fails by the arbitrary interpolation \"against me\" after בּא. According to Hofmann, the angel says that \"he had to return and contend further with the prince of the people of Persia; and that when he has retired from this conflict, then shall the prince of the Grecian people come, compelling him to enter on a new war.\" This last clause Hofmann thus more fully illustrates: \"Into the conflict with the prince of the people of Persia, which the angel retires from, the prince of the Grecian people enters, and against him he resumes it after that the Persian kingdom has fallen, and is then also helped by Michael, the prince of the Jewish people, in this war against the prince of Grecia, as he had been in the war against the prince of Persia\" (Schriftbew. i. pp. 333, 334f.). But Hitzig and Kliefoth have, in opposition to this, referred to the incongruity which lies in the thought that the prince of Javan shall enter into the war of the angel against the Persians, and assume and carry it forward. The angel fights against the demon of Persia, not to destroy the Persians, but to influence the Persian king in favour of the people of God; on the contrary, the prince of Javan comes to destroy the Persian king. According to this, we cannot say that the prince of Javan enters into the place of the angel in the war. \"The Grecians and the Persians much rather stand,\" as Hitzig rightly remarks, \"on one side, and are adversaries of Michael and our שׂר,\" i.e., of the angel who spake to Daniel. Add to this, that although יצא, to go out, means also to go away, to go off, yet the meaning to go away from the conflict, to abandon it, is not confirmed: much rather יצא, sensu militari, always denotes only \"to go out, forth, into the conflict;\" cf. Sa1 8:20; Sa1 23:15; Ch1 20:1; Job 39:21, etc. We have to take the word in this signification here (with C. B. Michaelis, Klief., and Kran.), only we must not, with Kranichfeld, supply the clause, \"to another more extensive conflict,\" because this supplement is arbitrary, but rather, with Kliefoth, interpret the word generally as it stands of the going out of the angel to fight for the people of God, without excluding the war with the prince of Persia, or limiting it to this war. Thus the following will be the meaning of the passage: Now shall I return to resume and continue the war with the prince of Persia, to maintain the position gained (Dan 10:13) beside the kings of Persia; but when (while) I thus go forth to war, i.e., while I carry on this conflict, lo, the prince of Javan shall come (הנּה with the partic. בּא of the future) - then shall there be a new conflict. This last thought is not, it is true, expressly uttered, but it appears from Dan 10:21. The warring with the prince, i.e., the spirit of Persia hostile to Israel, refers to the oppositions which the Jews would encounter in the hindrances put in the way of their building the temple from the time of Cyrus to the time of Darius Hystaspes, and further under Xerxes and Artaxerxes till the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem by Nehemiah, as well as at a later time on the side of the Persian world-power, in the midst of all which difficulties the Angel of the Lord promises to guide the affairs of His people. יון שׂר is the spirit of the Macedonian world-kingdom, which would arise and show as great hostility as did the spirit of Persia against the people of God. \n"]},{"type":"verse","number":21,"content":["This verse is antithetically connected with the preceding by אבּל, but yet. The contrast, however, does not refer to the fears for the theocracy (Kranichfeld) arising out of the last-named circumstance (v. 20b), according to which the angel seeks to inform Daniel that under these circumstances the prophecy can only contain calamity. For \"the prophecy by no means contains only calamity, but war and victory and everlasting victory added thereto\" (Klief.). C. B. Michaelis has more correctly interpreted the connection thus: Verum ne forte et sic, quod principem Graeciae Persarum principi successurum intellexisti, animum despondeas, audi ergo, quod tibi tuisque solatio esse potest, ego indicabo tibi, quod, etc. \"The Scripture of truth\" is the book in which God has designated beforehand, according to truth, the history of the world as it shall certainly be unfolded; cf. Mal 3:16; Psa 139:16; Rev 5:1. The following clause, אחד ואין, is not connected adversatively with the preceding: \"there is yet no one ... \" (Hofmann and others), but illustratively, for the angel states more minutely the nature of the war which he has to carry on. He has no one who fights with him against these enemies (אלּה על, against the evil spirits of Persia and Greece) but Michael the angel-prince of Israel, who strongly shows himself with him, i.e., as an ally in the conflict (מתחזּק as Sa1 4:9; Sa2 10:12), i.e., renders to him powerful aid, as he himself in the first year of Darius the Mede had been a strong helper and protection to Michael. \n"]}],"introduction":"The Revelation Regarding the Affliction of the People of God on the Part of the Rulers of the World Till the Consummation of the Kingdom of God - Daniel 10-12\nIn the third year of the reign of Cyrus, Daniel received the last revelation regarding the future of his people, which gives a fuller unfolding of the hostile attitude of the world-power toward the people and the kingdom of God from the time of the Persian dominion to the end of the days, as well as regarding the powerful protection which the covenant people shall experience amid the severe oppressions they would be exposed to for their purification. This revelation connects itself, both as to its contents and form, so closely with Daniel 8, that it is to be viewed as a further unfolding of that prophecy, and serves for the illustration and confirmation of that which was announced to the prophet shortly before the destruction of the Chaldean world-kingdom regarding the world-kingdoms that were to follow, and their relation to the theocracy. It consists of three parts: - (1.) There is the description of the appearance of God as to its nature, the impression it produced on the prophet, and its object (Daniel 10:1-11:2a). (2.) The unveiling of the future, in brief statements regarding the relation of the Persian and the Javanic world-kingdoms to Israel, and in more comprehensive descriptions of the wars of the kings of the north and the south for the supremacy, with the hostilities thence arising against the kingdom of God - hostilities which aim at its destruction, but which, because of the powerful succour which is rendered to Israel by Michael the angel-prince, shall come to an end in the destruction of the enemy of God and the final salvation of the people of God (Daniel 11:2b-12:3). (3.) This revelation concludes with the definition of the duration of the time of oppression, and with the command given to Daniel to seal up the words, together with the prophecy, till the time of the end, and to rest till the end come: \"For thou shalt rest and stand in thy lot at the end of the days\" (Dan 12:4-13).\nIf we attentively examine first of all the form of this revelation, namely, the manifestation of God, by which there is given to Daniel the understanding of the events of the future (Dan 10:14, cf. Daniel 11 and Dan 12:1-13), this revelation will be found to be distinguished from all the others in this, that it is communicated partly by supernatural illumination for the interpretation of the dream-vision, partly by visions, partly by the appearance of angels. Auberlen (d. Proph. Daniel p. 91f.) has already referred to this distinction, and therein has found a beautiful and noteworthy progression, namely, that the one revelation always prepares the way, in a material and formal respect, for that which follows, from which we may see how God gradually prepared the prophet for the reception of still more definite disclosures. \"First Nebuchadnezzar dreams, and Daniel simply interprets (Daniel 2 and 4); afterwards Daniel himself has a dream, but as yet it is only as a vision in a dream of the night (Dan 7:1-2); then follows a vision in a waking state (Dan 8:1-3); and finally, in the last two revelations (Daniel 9 and 10-12), when Daniel, now a feeble, trembling (?) old man (Dan 10:8.), is already almost transplanted out of this world - now the ecstatic state seems to be no longer necessary for him. Now in his usual state he sees and hears angels speak like men, while his companions do not see the appearances from the higher world, and are only overwhelmed with terror, like those who accompanied Paul to Damascus (Dan 9:20., Dan 10:4., cf. Acts of Ap. Act 9:7).\" It is true, indeed, that, as Aub. remarks, there is a progression from interpreting of dreams to the receiving of visions in dreams and in the waking state, but by this reference neither are the actual contents of the revelation given in different forms perfectly comprehended, nor still less is the meaning of the difference made clear. Auberlen, in thus representing the distinction, has left out of view the circumstance, that the visions in Daniel 7 and 8 are also interpreted to Daniel by an angel; moreover, that the revelation in Daniel 8 does not merely consist of a vision, in which Daniel sees the destruction of the Persian world-kingdom by the Javanic under the figure of a he-goat casting down the ram, but that Daniel, after this vision, also hears an angel speak, and a voice comes to him from above the waters of the Ulai which commands the angel Gabriel to explain the vision to the seer (Dan 8:13.), and that this second part of that revelation has a great likeness to that in Daniel 10-12; finally, that the same angel Gabriel again appears in Daniel 9, and brings to Daniel the revelation regarding the seventy weeks (Dan 9:24-27). But as to the interpretation of these revelations given in different forms, this difference is conditioned partly by the subjective relations sustained by the recipients to God, while, on the other hand, the form is in the most intimate manner connected with the contents of the revelation, and indeed in a way wholly different and much deeper than Auberlen thinks, if he therein sees only the material progression to greater speciality in the prophecy.\nTo comprehend the meaning of the divine revelation in Daniel 10-12, we must examine more closely the resemblance which it presents to Dan 8:13-19. As in the vision Daniel 8, which points to the oppression of the time of the end (Dan 8:17, Dan 8:19), Daniel heard a voice from the Ulai (Dan 8:16), so in Daniel 10 and Dan 12:1-13 the personage from whom that voice proceeded appears within the circle of Daniel's vision, and announces to him what shall happen to his people הימים בּאחרית (Dan 10:14). This celestial person appears to him in such awful divine majesty, that he falls to the ground on hearing his voice, as already in Dan 8:17. on hearing his voice and message, so that he feared he should perish; and it was only by repeated supernatural consolation and strengthening that he was able to stand erect again, and was made capable of hearing the revelation. The heavenly being who appears to him resembles in appearance the glory of Jehovah which Ezekiel had seen by the river Chaboras (Chebar); and this appearance of the man clothed in linen prepared the contents of his revelation, for God so manifested Himself to Daniel (as He will approve Himself to His people in the times of the future great tribulation) as He who in judgment and in righteousness rules the affairs of the world-kingdoms and of the kingdom of God, and conducts them to the issues foreseen; so that the effect of His appearance on Daniel formed a pre-intimation and a pledge of that which would happen to the people of Daniel in the future. As Daniel was thrown to the ground by the divine majesty of the man clothed in linen, but was raised up again by a supernatural hand, so shall the people of God be thrown to the ground by the fearful judgments that shall pass over them, but shall again be raised up by the all-powerful help of their God and His angel-prince Michael, and shall be strengthened to endure the tribulation. According to this, the very appearance of God has prophetic significance; and the reason why this last vision is communicated to Daniel neither by a vision nor by angels, but by a majestic Theophany, does not lie in the more definite disclosures which should be given to him regarding the future, but only in this, that the revelation, as is mentioned in the superscription, Dan 10:1, places in view the גּדול וצבא אמת (Dan 10:1).\nOf this oppression, that spoken of in Daniel 8, which should come upon the people of God from the fierce and cunning king seen as a little horn, forms a type; therefore Daniel hears the voice from the waters of the Ulai. That which is there briefly indicated, is in Daniel 10-12 further extended and completed. In regard to the definiteness of the prediction, the revelation in Daniel 10-12 does not go beyond that in Daniel 8; but it does so with respect to the detailed description found in it of the wars of the world-rulers against one another and against the people of God, as well as in this, that it opens a glimpse into the spirit-world, and gives disclosures regarding the unseen spiritual powers who mingle in the history of nations. But over these powers God the Lord exercises dominion, and helps His people to obtain a victory over all their enemies. To reveal this, and in actual fact to attest it to the prophet, and through him to the church of God of all times, is the object of the Theophany, which is circumstantially described in Daniel 10 for the sake of its prophetical character. \n"},"thisChapterLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/DAN/10.json","thisChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"DAN","chapter":10},"nextChapterApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/DAN/11.json","nextChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"DAN","chapter":11},"previousChapterApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/DAN/9.json","previousChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"DAN","chapter":9},"numberOfVerses":13}