Daniel 8:1

CHAPTER VIII

This chapter contains Daniel's vision of the ram and he-goat,

1-14;

referring, as explained by the angel, to the Persian and

Grecian monarchies, 15-26.

The little horn mentioned in the ninth verse, (or fierce king,

as interpreted in the twenty-third,) is supposed by some to

denote Antiochus Epiphanes; but seems more properly to apply to

the Roman power in general, by which the polity and temple of

the Jews were destroyed, on account of the great transgressions

of these ancient people of God; and particularly because of

their very obstinate and unaccountable rejection of the

glorious doctrines of Christianity, which had been preached

among them by Jesus Christ and his apostles, and the truth of

which God had attested "by signs and wonders, and by divers

miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost." Daniel is then informed

of the two thousand and three hundred prophetic days (that is,

years) which must elapse before the sanctuary be cleansed; or,

in other words, before righteousness shall prevail over the

whole earth. This period is supposed, with considerable

probability to have had its commencement when Alexander the

Great invaded Asia, in the year before Christ 334. This will

bring the close of it to about the end of the SIXTH chiliad of

the world; when, as already observed, some astonishing changes

are expected to take place in the moral condition of the human

race; when the power of Antichrist, both Papal and Mohammedan,

shall be totally annihilated, and universal dominion given to

the saints of the Most High. The chapter concludes with the

distress of Daniel on account of the fearful judgments with

which his country should be visited in after ages, 27.

NOTES ON CHAP. VIII

Verse Daniel 8:1. In the third year of the reign of - Belshazzar] We now come once more to the Hebrew, the Chaldee part of the book being finished. As the Chaldeans had a particular interest both in the history and prophecies from Daniel 2:4 to the end of Daniel 7:28, the whole is written in Chaldee, but as the prophecies which remain concern times posterior to the Chaldean monarchy, and principally relate to the Church and people of God generally, they are written in the Hebrew language, this being the tongue in which God chose to reveal all his counsels given under the Old Testament relative to the New.