Daniel 7:25

Expansion of the -great things" of Daniel 7:8 end. He will blaspheme the Most High (cf. Daniel 11:36 -will speak marvellous things against the God of gods"), and seek to ruin His saints.

wear away] LXX, κατατρίψει. An expressive figure for continuous persecution and vexation. The idea of the word is to wearor rub away, applied often to clothes (Deuteronomy 8:4; Joshua 9:13; Isaiah 50:9, al.), though in the usual rendering of A.V., R.V., -wax old," this is unfortunately obliterated. Cf. Job 13:28 -and he, like a rotten thing, weareth(or falleth) away"; 1 Chronicles 17:9 -neither shall the children of unrighteousness any more wearthem away" (altered from the -afflict" of 2 Samuel 7:10); Isaiah 3:15, Targ. -and the faces of the poor ye wearaway" (for Heb. grind).

think to change times and law] The phrase is worded generally; and it is true that Antiochus, according to 1Ma 1:41-42, sought to interfere arbitrarily even with heathen cults: but the allusion is more particularly to the attempts made by him to suppress the Jewish religion by prohibiting the observance of religious festivals and other ordinances of the Law (see 1Ma 1:44-49). -Think" means planor even hope, a sense which the word used has often in the Targums and in Syriac (Luke 24:21, Pesh.). For -times" in the sense of fixed times(here, the times fixed for religious observances, the Hebrew mô"ădim, Leviticus 23:2; Leviticus 23:4 [R.V. set feasts, Isaiah 1:14 [A.V., R.V., appointed feasts, Isaiah 33:20 [A.V., R.V., solemnities), see in the Targ. Genesis 1:14; Exodus 13:10; Exodus 23:15; Numbers 28:2; Isaiah 33:20 (for -solemnities"); Jeremiah 8:7. By -law" is meant the Mosaic law, as Daniel 6:5.

until a time and times and half a time (R.V.)] The saints will be given into the hand of this godless king for three years and a half. -Time" (a different word from that in the preceding clause, and in the note on Daniel 7:12 rendered season) has the same sense of year, which it had in Daniel 4:16: the same expression (in its Hebrew form) recurs in Daniel 12:7 (also of the duration of Antiochus" persecution); comp. also Revelation 12:14. For the particulars of Antiochus" persecution, see the notes on Daniel 11:31. It began with the mission of Apollonius against Jerusalem, probably about June 168, and with the edict of Antiochus which was immediately afterwards put in force (1Ma 1:20-53); and it ended (substantially) with the re-dedication of the Temple, after its three years" desecration, on the 25th of Chisleu [Dec.], 165 (1Ma 4:52 f.). This, in all probability, is the period of 3½ years which is here intended. The 3½ years might also, however, be reckoned from the erection of the heathen altar in the court of the Temple, on the 15th of Chisleu, b.c. 168, to the death of Antiochus, which took place probably about the middle of 164 (see on Daniel 8:14): the terminus a quowould then agree with that of the 1290 days in Daniel 12:11, and the two periods would be (approximately) the same; but the six months before December 168 are more likely to have been included in the period of persecution, than the six months after December 165, when the victories of Judas had stemmed the tide of the persecution, and public worship had been resumed in the Temple.