7:15-28 It is desirable to obtain the right and full sense of what we see and hear from God; and those that would know, must ask by faithful and fervent prayer. The angel told Daniel plainly. He especially desired to know respecting the little horn, which made war with the saints, and prevailed against them. Here is foretold the rage of papal Rome against true Christians. St. John, in his visions and prophecies, which point in the first place at Rome, has plain reference to these visions. Daniel had a joyful prospect of the prevalence of God's kingdom among men. This refers to the second coming of our blessed Lord, when the saints shall triumph in the complete fall of Satan's kingdom. The saints of the Most High shall possess the kingdom for ever. Far be it from us to infer from hence, that dominion is founded on grace. It promises that the gospel kingdom shall be set up; a kingdom of light, holiness, and love; a kingdom of grace, the privileges and comforts of which shall be the earnest and first-fruits of the kingdom of glory. But the full accomplishment will be in the everlasting happiness of the saints, the kingdom that cannot be moved. The gathering together the whole family of God will be a blessedness of Christ's coming.

And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise,..... Or ten kingdoms which sprung out of the Roman empire, or into which it was broken and divided upon the dissolution of it, about A.D. 476; which, according to Mr. Mede (k), were thus divided, A.D. 456,

1. Britons; 2. Saxons; 3. Franks; 4. Burgundians; 5 Visigoths; 6. Suevians and Alanes; 7. Vandals; 8. Almanes; 9. Ostrogoths; 10. Greeks.

The list Bishop Lloyd (l) has given of them is,

1. Hunns, who erected their kingdom in that part of Pannonia and Dacia, which was from them called Hungary, about A.D. 356. 2. Ostrogoths, who settled themselves in the countries that reach from Rhetia to Maesia, even to Thrace, about 377; and afterwards came into Italy under Alaricus, in 410. 3. Visigoths, who settled in the south parts of France, and in Catalonia, about 378. 4. Franks, who seized upon part of Germany and Gaul, A.D. 410. 5. Vandals, who settled in Spain; afterwards set up their kingdom in Africa, A.D. 407; their king Gensericus sacked Rome, 455. 6. Suevians and Alans, who seized the western parts of Spain, A.D. 407; and invaded Italy, 457. 7. Burgundians, who came out of Germany, into that part of Gaul called from them Burgundy, 407. 8. Herules, Rugians, and Thoringians, who settled in Italy under Odoacer, about A.D. 476. 9. Saxons, who made themselves masters of Great Britain about the same time, 476. 10. Longobards, called likewise Gopidae, who settled in Germany, about Magdeburg, A.D. 383; and afterwards succeeded the Heruli and Thuringi in Hungary, about the year 826.

Sir Isaac Newton (m) reckons the ten kingdoms in the following order:

1. the kingdom of the Vandals and Alans in Spain and Africa; 2. of the Suevians in Spain; 3. of the Visigoths; 4. of the Alans in Gallia; 5. of the Burgundians; 6. of the Franks; 7. of the Britons; 8. of the Hunns; 9. of the Lombards; 10. of Ravenna;

who gives an account of the various kings of these kingdoms; and these, as the same learned writer says (n), whatever was their number afterwards, they are still called the ten kings from their first number; and though they have not always been in the same form and order, yet they have been generally about, if not exactly, the same number; as they are now near the same; and may be thus reckoned, as the kingdoms of France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Great Britain, Sardinia, Denmark, the two Sicilies, Swedeland, Prussia, and Poland; of which see more See Gill on Revelation 17:12.

And another shall rise after thee: not Titus Vespeasian, as Jarchi and Saadiah; nor the nation of Gog and Magog, as Jacchiades: but the pope of Rome, or antichrist; who came to his power as universal bishop, and as a horn or temporal prince, after the above kingdoms arose; not after they were at an end, but after they were constituted and established, as it was proper they should first be; since they were to give their strength, power, and kingdom, to the antichristian beast, by which it became a horn or temporal prince, Revelation 17:13. The Septuagint render it, "behind them"; which Mr. Mede (o) interprets of his springing up unawares, imperceptibly, unnoticed, and unobserved by them, till he overtopped them.

And he shall be diverse from the first; from the first ten horns, kings or kingdoms; having, besides a secular power and temporal authority, an ecclesiastical and spiritual one; a power not only over the bodies and estates of men, but over their souls and consciences; and even over the other horns and kingdoms, which they had not over one another; and so was different from them all:

and he shall subdue three kings; designed by the three horns plucked up by the roots, and which fell before him; of which See Gill on Daniel 7:8.

(k) Works, B. 3. c. 14. p. 661. (l) Apud Lowth in loc. (m) Observations on Daniel, c. 6. p. 47. (n) Ibid. p. 73. (o) Works, B. 4. Ephesians 24. p. 778.

24. ten horns—answering to the ten "toes" (Da 2:41).

out of this kingdom—It is out of the fourth kingdom that ten others arise, whatever exterior territory any of them possess (Re 13:1; 17:12).

rise after them—yet contemporaneous with them; the ten are contemporaries. Antichrist rises after their rise, at first "little" (Da 7:8); but after destroying three of the ten, he becomes greater than them all (Da 7:20, 21). The three being gone, he is the eighth (compare Re 17:11); a distinct head, and yet "of the seven." As the previous world kingdoms had their representative heads (Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar; Persia, Cyrus; Greece, Alexander), so the fourth kingdom and its Antichrists shall have their evil concentrated in the one final Antichrist. As Antiochus Epiphanes, the Antichrist of the third kingdom in Da 8:23-25, was the personal enemy of God, so the final Antichrist of the fourth kingdom, his antitype. The Church has endured a pagan and a papal persecution; there remains for her an infidel persecution, general, purifying, and cementing [Cecil]. He will not merely, as Popery, substitute himself for Christ in Christ's name, but "deny the Father and the Son" (1Jo 2:22). The persecution is to continue up to Christ's second coming (Da 7:21, 22); the horn of blasphemy cannot therefore be past; for now there is almost a general cessation of persecution.

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