Explanatory Notes upon the Old and New Testaments

This and the following chapters are not writ in Chaldee, but in Hebrew, for the benefit of the Jews. Here is the vision of the ram, and the he-goat, and the little horn, ver. 1-14. The interpretation of it, ver. 15-27

1. After that - In the other vision he speaks o [ all the four monarchies; here only of the three first; this vision being a comment upon the first.

2. The river of Ulai - Which ran round the city.

3. Two horns - The kingdom of Media and Persia. And the higher - The kingdom of Persia which rose last, in Cyrus, became more eminent than that of the Medes.

4. West-ward - Toward Babylon, Syria, Cappadocia, Asia the less, and Greece, all westward from Media and Persia. North-ward - Against the Armenians, Iberians, Lydians, Colchi Caspians. South-ward - Against Ethiopia, Arabia, Egypt.

5. An he-goat - The Grecian empire. The whole earth - The whole Persian empire. Touched not the ground - Went with incredible swiftness. A horn - This was Alexander the great.

6. The ram - The king of Media and Persia.

8. Was broken - When Alexander was greatest, then was he broken, and that to pieces, for he, his mother, son, brother, and all his kindred were destroyed. The four winds -

1. Antipater got Greece.

2. Asia was possessed by Antigonus.

3. Ptolemy got Egypt.

4. Seleucus had Babylon and Syria. All these were variously situated; to the east, Babylon and Syria; to the south, Egypt; to the north, Asia the less; to the west, Greece.

9. A little horn - This little horn was Antiochus Epiphanes. The south - Egypt where he besieged and took many places. The east - In Syria, Babylon, Armenia. The pleasant land - Judea, so called because of the temple and people of God in it, and the fruitfulness of it.

10. The host of heaven - The church of God militant, who worship the God of heaven, who are citizens of heaven, whose names are written in heaven; and among these the priests, and champions, who were as stars shining above the rest; these he profaned and slew cruelly.

11. The prince - Not only against the high-priest, but against God himself. Was cast down - He took away the use of the temple as to the holy service and sacrifices.

12. By reason of transgression - Both the transgression of the priests, and of the people.

13. One saint - That is, one holy angel. How long - How long shall Antiochus continue his vexations against the people and prevent the worship of God? This is, the treading down of the sanctuary, and the host.

14. He - That angel. Then - Just so long it was, from the defection of the people, procured by Menelaus, the high-priest, to the cleansing of the sanctuary, and the re-establishment of religion among them.

15. The meaning - A more clear discovery of those things. The appearance of a man - Probably Gabriel.

16. A man's voice - Of him before mentioned, namely, Christ.

17. He came near - That he might speak more familiarly to him, yet Daniel could not bear the glory of it. How much less can we bear the glory of God, and how graciously hath the Lord dealt with us, to teach us by men, and not by angels? O son of man - He calls him son of man, to make him mind his frailty, and not to be lifted up with this great condescension of heaven. At the time - In God's appointed time, in the latter day, but not now in thy life- time.

18. Toward the ground - Being terrified with the splendour and grandeur both of the messenger and message. Set me upright - By one touch only. The power of spirits is incomparably greater than that of the strongest of men.

19. The indignation - God will raise up Antiochus to execute his wrath against the Jews for their sins, yet there shall be an end of that indignation.

23. In the latter time - When they were come to the height, and beginning to decline. When the transgressors - When the Jews were grown to an excess of wickedness, then God suffered Antiochus to persecute them. Dark sentences - Full of subtilty: such all histories declare Antiochus to be.

24. Not by his own power - Not by any heroick deeds, but by making use of the Jewish factions, through the divine commission to punish a backsliding nation; and by means of Eumenes and Attalus, by whose help he got up to this height. Shall destroy - He shall by force, craft, and cruelty, destroy many of God's people.

25. By peace - Under colour of kindness. Against the prince of princes - He fought against God, affronting God's laws, profaning God's worship, and temple, and setting up the image and worship of Jupiter there. Without hand - By a disease whereof he died, 1Macc vi, 8.

26. Shut thou up - Lay it up in thy heart. For many days - Three hundred years after this; long after Daniel's days.

27. Was sick - Being overwhelmed by a sense of the calamity that should befall the people of God. Did the king's business - Having recovered strength, he minded his place, duty and trust, and concealed the whole, that they might not see it by his countenance.

Daniel's prayer for the restoration of Israel, ver. 1-23. The answer sent him by an angel, ver. 24-27. This is the clearest prophecy of the Messiah in all the Old Testament.

1. In the first year of Darius - That is, immediately after the overthrow of the kingdom of Babylon, which was the year of the Jews deliverance from captivity. Of the Medes - This Darius was not Darius the Persian, under whom the temple was built, as some have asserted, to invalidate the credibility of this book; but Darius the Mede, who lived in the time of Daniel.

2. By books - By the sacred books.

12. Judged us - Whose duty it was to govern the people, and to judge their causes; wherein if there was a failure, it was a sin, and judgment upon the people, and upon the rulers and Judges themselves also. Upon Jerusalem - A place privileged many ways above all others, and punished above all others.

14. The Lord watched - God's watching denotes the fit ways that he always takes to punish sinners.

17. For the Lord's sake - For the sake of the Messiah: to whom the title Lord is frequently given in the Old Testament.

21. About the time - The time of the evening sacrifice was a solemn and set time of devotion. Tho' the altar was in ruins, and there was no oblation offered upon it, yet the pious Jews were daily thoughtful of the time when it should have been offered, and hoped that their prayer would be set forth before God as incense, and the lifting up of their hands, as the evening sacrifice. This was peculiarly a type of that great sacrifice, which Christ was to offer: and it was in virtue of that sacrifice, that Daniel's prayer was accepted, when he prayed for the Lord's sake.

24. Seventy weeks - These weeks are weeks of days, and these days are so many years. To finish the transgression - The angel discovers first the disease in three several words, which contain all sorts of sin, which the Messiah should free us from by his full redemption. He shews the cure of this disease in three words.

1. To finish transgression.

2. To make an end of sin.

3. To make reconciliation: all which words are very expressive in the original, and signify to pardon, to blot out, to destroy. To bring in everlasting righteousness - To bring in justification by the free grace of God in Christ, and sanctification by his spirit: called everlasting, because Christ is eternal, and so are the acceptance and holiness purchased for us. Christ brings this in,

1. By his merit.

2. By his gospel declaring it.

3. By faith applying, and sealing it by the Holy Ghost. To seal up - To abrogate the former dispensation of the law, and to ratify the gospel covenant. To anoint - This alludes to his name Messiah and Christ, both which signify anointed. Christ was anointed at his first conception, and personal union, Luke i, 35. In his baptism, Matt. iii, 17, to his three offices by the holy Ghost,

1. King, Matt. ii, 2.

2. Prophet, Isaiah lxi, 1.

3. Priest, Psalm cx, 4.

25. From the going forth - From the publication of the edict, whether of Cyrus or Darius, to restore and to build it.

26. And after - After the seven and the sixty two that followed them. Not for himself - But for our sakes, and for our salvation. And the people - The Roman under the conduct of Titus. Determined - God hath decreed to destroy that place and people, by the miseries and desolations of war.

27. He shall confirm - Christ confirmed the new covenant,

1. By the testimony of angels, of John baptist, of the wise men, of the saints then living, of Moses and Elias.

2. By his preaching.

3. By signs and wonders.

4. By his holy life.

5. By his resurrection and ascension.

6. By his death and blood shedding. Shall cause the sacrifice to cease - All the Jewish rites, and Levitical worship. By his death he abrogated, and put an end to this labourious service, forever. And that determined - That spirit of slumber, which God has determined to pour on the desolate nation, 'till the time draws near, when all Israel shall be saved.

This chapter and the two next make one entire vision and prophecy, given Daniel about two years after the former. This chapter is introductory: the next has the prophecy itself, and the twelfth chapter, the conclusion of it. In this we have Daniel's solemn humiliation, ver. 1-3. A glorious appearance of the Son of God, ver. 4-9. The encouragement given him to expect a full discovery of future events, ver. 10-25.

2. Was mourning - Because he foresaw the many calamities that would befall the Jews for their sins, especially for destroying the Messiah, and rejecting his gospel.

4. The first month - Nisan, which is March. Hiddekel - Or Tigris.

5. A certain man - Very probably Christ, who appeared to Daniel in royal and priestly robes, and in so great brightness and majesty.

12. He - Not Christ, but Gabriel.

13. Withstood me - God suffered the wicked counsels of Cambyses to take place awhile; but Daniel by his prayers, and the angel by his power, overcame him at last: and this very thing laid a foundation of the ruin of the Persian monarchies. Michael - Michael here is commonly supposed to mean Christ. I remained - To counter-work their designs against the people of God.

15. I set my face - I prostrated myself upon the earth. And I became dumb - Thro' astonishment.

16. One like the sons of men - This likewise seems to have been Gabriel. I have retained no strength - Tho' he appeared to him, and spake to him as a man, yet Daniel could not bear his presence, without some dread.

20. To fight - To oppose his mischievous designs.

21. Michael - Christ alone is the protector of his church, when all the princes of the earth desert or oppose it.

A prediction of the setting up of the Grecian monarchy, ver. 1- 4. Of the affairs of Egypt and Syria, ver. 5-20. The rise and success of Antiochus Epiphanes, ver. 21-29. The mischief he would do to the Jews, ver. 30-43. His fall, ver. 44, 45.

2. He - Xerxes was more potent than all the other three, because his father Darius had gathered an incredible mass for him, which he himself increased for six years together, before he made his expedition against Greece. There were more kings of Persia besides those four, but they had no concern with the people of God.

3. A mighty king - Alexander the great.

4. When he shall stand up - When he is come to his highest point. Nor according to his dominion - They did not reign as kings at first, but only as captains; and as to the extent of their dominion, it was far less than Alexander's, yea, all four fell short of his. Even for others - Some lesser commanders shared several parts of the empire.

5. The king of the south - This king was Ptolemy, the first king of Egypt after Alexander who is brought in, because he took Jerusalem by treachery; for the angel minds only those persons and things which related to the Jews. One of his princes - Seleucus Nicanor, who overcame Demetrius, and added Asia to his empire.

6. They - The successors of those first kings of Egypt and Syria. Make an agreement - Bernice shall come from Egypt and marry with Antiochus Theus, who was the son of Antiochus Soter, and nephew to Seleucus Nicanor; for her father brought her to Pelusium with an infinite sum of gold and silver for her dowry. She shall not retain - She continued not in favour and authority. Nor his arm - His power.

7. Shall one stand up - Of Bernice shall come Ptolemaeus Euergetes, who shall revenge the wrong done to his sister. Shall enter into the fortress - For he invaded Syria, and took many strong-holds.

8. He shall continue more years - He continued forty-six years.

9. Return - So he did with a booty of forty thousand talents of silver. 10. But his sons - He means the sons of the king of the north, shall be incensed with the deeds of Ptolemaeus Euergetes, and his son Ptolemaeus Philopator. One shall come - Antiochus the great, shall pass through Syria and recover what the king of Egypt took from his father. Even to his fortress - To Raphia, which was a strong fortress at the entrance of Egypt.

11. His hand - Into the hand of Ptolemy.

12. His heart shall be lifted up - He might have recovered all, but he grew proud of his victory, and returned again to his luxury.

16. But he - Antiochus, that comes against Ptolemy. The glorious land - Judea. Antiochus held all Judea, and with the provision and product of it, maintained his army.

17. He shall also set his face - He shall use all the force he can to master Egypt, and engross it to himself. Upright ones - Many of the religious Jews joined with him: the rest of his army was a profane rabble of rude Heathens. He shall give - Antiochus shall give Cleopatra his daughter to young Ptolemy, called the daughter of women, for her beauty. Corrupting her - Persuading her to betray her husband: but she stuck to her husband's interest, and not her father's.

18. The isles - The isles and sea-coasts of the Mediterranean and Aegean sea. But a prince - The Roman ambassador Scipio beat Antiochus at his own weapons of power and policy, and turned the reproach upon his own head.

19. Then - Then he turned his face home-ward, yet was he not in safety, but was quickly after killed.

20. A raiser of taxes - Seleucus Philopator, who peeled his subjects, and spared not to rob the temple. Within few days - For he lived not out the third part of his father's reign. Not in battle - Not by open force, but by poison.

21. A vile person - Antiochus, called Epiphanes by his flatterers, but the people of God accounted him infamous, base, and treacherous. They - Neither peers nor people, nor was he the heir, but his nephew; but he crept in by flatteries.

22. Overflown - The Egyptian force near Pelusium, where they fell by the power of Antiochus, with a great slaughter, near the river Nile. The prince - The high-priest with his place and honour, for he put out Onias, and set up in his stead, Jason his brother.

23. After the league - For he made a league with Egypt, and came with a few, (but chosen men) and took the passes, and put all in subjection to him.

24. He shall enter peaceably - He shall come in upon the Egyptians under pretense of peace, in a plentiful and delicious country, and among a mass of treasures which the kings successively had heaped up; the greatest part of which Antiochus distributed among his confidants, whereby he obliged them the faster to him. He did herein what his fathers had not done; the kings of Syria before him, could never attain to this success over Egypt. Against the strong-holds - Having succeeded thus far, he shall proceed to the places of greatest strength in that kingdom. For a time - That is 'till God put a stop to his career, for the Egyptians found means to deliver themselves from his yoke.

25. But he shall not stand - He might have prospered, if he had not been betrayed by Eulaius, Benaeus, and the rest of his nobles, corrupted by Antiochus.

26. Yea - His most familiar friends and confidants; for he shall be overthrown with a great slaughter, as when the Nile overflows the country.

27. At one table - They shall meet under pretense of peace. But it shall not prosper - For neither shall Antiochus gain Egypt by all his artifice, nor Ptolemy, Syria. At the time appointed - By the Lord, whose purpose and counsel shall stand.

28. Then shall he return - Antiochus shall depart with his booty gotten in Egypt. Against the holy covenant - Against the law of God, with the people that worshipped God according to his will.

29. Toward the south - Egypt, to fight against Ptolemy. But - This shall not be so prosperous as the two former expeditions, but shall fail both of his victory and booty.

30. The ships of Chittim - The Roman out of Italy, and the Archipelago. This made his heart boil with rancor, which he spit out against the Jews; especially being solicited to it by Jason first, and Menelaus after, who were apostates, and betrayers of their brethren.

31. And arms - Not only of his own army, but many Jews. The sanctuary - Even the holy of holies. The abomination - The statue of Jupiter placed in the temple.

36. The king - Antiochus was an eminent type of antichrist; to whom many things that follow may be applied by way of accommodation: altho' they principally refer to Antiochus, and had their primary accomplishment in him. For that that is determined - That which God hath decreed to be done by him shall be done; and that which God hath purposed to be done upon him.

38. But in his estate - In the room of his father's God. The God of forces - This seems to be Jupiter Olympius, never introduced among the Syrians, 'till Antiochus did it.

39. With a strange God - Using all art and authority to propagate his worship.

41. The children of Ammon - He will not hurt them; because they helped him against the Jews.

43. At his steps - He had them at his foot, at his beck.

45. None shall help him - God shall cut him off in the midst of his days. And when he destroys, who can help?

A promise of deliverance, and of a joyful resurrection, ver. 1- 4. A conference concerning the time of these events, ver. 5-7. An answer to Daniel's enquiry, ver. 8-13.

1. For the children - The meaning seems to be, as after the death of Antiochus the Jews had some deliverance, so there will be yet a greater deliverance to the people of God, when Michael your prince, the Messiah shall appear for your salvation. A time of trouble - A the siege of Jerusalem, before the final judgment. The phrase at that time, probably includes all the time of Christ, from his first, to his last coming.

4. Seal the book - The book was command to be sealed, because it would be long before the words would be fulfilled, whereas those that were shortly to be fulfilled, were forbidden to be sealed. Shall run - Shall diligently search these prophecies; and they shall know the signs of the times, and wait upon God in the way of his judgments: he means chiefly in gospel-times.

5. Other two - Two angels waiting on Christ.

6. To the man - To Christ, who seemed to stand in the air above the waters, or upon them.

7. He held up his right hand - He held up both hands to heaven, for the more sure and solemn confirmation of it; and to denote the unchangeableness of God's decrees both for good to the church, and for evil to her enemies. By him - By God the father, and by himself that liveth forever, to shew the eternal God only knew that decreed it, and would bring it to pass. And an half - That is, a year, two years and half a year. We meet with this in the Revelation, under the title, some times of three days and an half, put for three years and an half, sometimes, forty two months, sometimes, twelve hundred and sixty days. Shall be finished - Which reaches to the calling of the Jews upon the destruction of antichrist.

8. What shall be the end - What is the meaning of all this?

9. And sealed - They shall not be clearly understood, 'till the event make them good.

10. And tried - The afflictions of the church are to prepare them, by taking away their filth, for the bridegroom, as gold and silver are tried and refined.

13. But go thou - I have revealed to thee these things, that thou and thy people, might be prepared for sufferings, and yet not without hope of a glorious deliverance. For thou shalt rest - In which hope thou shalt die, and rest from trouble, 'till the resurrection of the just. It ought to be the great concern of every one of us, to secure a happy lot in the end of the days, and then we may well be content with our present lot, welcoming the will of God.