8:1-14 God gives Daniel a foresight of the destruction of other kingdoms, which in their day were as powerful as that of Babylon. Could we foresee the changes that shall be when we are gone, we should be less affected with changes in our own day. The ram with two horns was the second empire, that of Media and Persia. He saw this ram overcome by a he-goat. This was Alexander the Great. Alexander, when about thirty-three years of age, and in his full strength, died, and showed the vanity of worldly pomp and power, and that they cannot make a man happy. While men dispute, as in the case of Alexander, respecting the death of some prosperous warrior, it is plain that the great First Cause of all had no more of his plan for him to execute, and therefore cut him off. Instead of that one great horn, there came up four notable ones, Alexander's four chief captains. A little horn became a great persecutor of the church and people of God. It seems that the Mohammedan delusion is here pointed out. It prospered, and at one time nearly destroyed the holy religion God's right hand had planted. It is just with God to deprive those of the privileges of his house who despise and profane them; and to make those know the worth of ordinances by the want of them, who would not know it by the enjoyment of them. Daniel heard the time of this calamity limited and determined; but not the time when it should come. If we would know the mind of God, we must apply to Christ, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge; not hid from us, but hid for us. There is much difficulty as to the precise time here stated, but the end of it cannot be very distant. God will, for his own glory, see to the cleansing of the church in due time. Christ died to cleanse his church; and he will so cleanse it as to present it blameless to himself.

Verse 11. - Yea, he magnified himself even to the prince of the host, and by him the daily sacrifice was taken away, and the place of his sanctuary was cast down. This is said by Bevan to be the most difficult verse in this whole book. There is a difference here between the Q'ri and the K'thib. The latter reads הרים, the hiphil of רום, while the former reads הרם, the hophal of the same verb At first sight the difficulty is not lessened by consideration of the versions. The Septuagint as it at present stands is utterly unintelligible, "Until the leader of the host shall save the captivity, and by him everlasting mountains were broken down, and their place and sacrifice taken away, and he placed it in the very ground, and he prospered [reading with Syriac] and was, and the holy place shall be laid waste." This confusion is due to confluence of readings, and is not difficult to disentangle with the help of the Massoretic text. Up to the last two words the Septuagint is a translation of a text differing from the Massoretic simply by intelligible variations and repetitions not uncommon in the Septuagint. The first clause of the LXX. originally was probably, "Till the prince shall deliver the captivity," reading שְׁבִי (shebee) instead of צַבָא (tzaba) - a scribe, finding צבא in his Hebrew, then added the translation of it to the margin of his Greek copy, from which it got into the text. The original of the LXX. had also יַצִּיּל (yatztzeel) instead of הִגְדִיל (hig'deel) - a confusion easily made in the elder script, in which י and ה were like. We learn from the Talmud (Shabb., 103b) that ג was liable to be mistaken by scribes for צ. Moreover, "captivity" would naturally suggest נצל, "to deliver." The second clause is, "By him the everlasting mountains were broken down." Here hayreem has been read with the K'thib, and vocalized as if it were hareem, and tameed, "continual," translated as equivalent to עולם ('olam), "everlasting." The next clause reveals the other meaning of tameed, "sacrifice," which probably had been written on the margin, and then dropped into the text. The latter part of the Septuagint verse appears to be confused with the latter part of the following verse according to the Massoretes. Theodotion is even less intelligible than the Septuagint, "Until the leader of the host shall save the captivity, and through him the sacrifice was broken down, and he prospered, and the holy place shall be made desolate." It is to be noticed that the first clause here agrees with the LXX. It is possible that "and he prospered" is a doublet, הִצְלִיַח being read for חֻשְׁלַד in some copy. The Peshitta differs from beth the Greek versions, "Until it arrive to the chiefs of the host, and by it was set up in perpetuity, and preparing he strengthened the sanctuary," and while it is difficult to understand the origin of the variation in the first clause, it is clear that in the second clause the translator must have read hish-leem for hooshlak. The one thing that seems clear is that the reading of the K'thib is to be preferred. We should read hayreem, not hooram. Only the first of these could be read "mountains." If we translate the words as they stand, we shall certainly be removed out of the region of all the commentators. It is assumed that "the little horn" is the subject of this sentence; but "horn" is feminine in Hebrew, and the verbs here are in the masculine; this is against it being the nominative. The "prince of the host," then, must be the nominative of the verbs and subject of the sentence. The rendering of the first clause ought to be, then, "Until the prince of the host magnify himself (1 Samuel 12:24), and by himself he shall offer the daily sacrifice. And he shall cast down the foundation of his holy place," reading hishlayk instead of hooshlak. We should feel strongly in. clined to transfer the first "and" to hayreem, and, changing the punctuation, read, "Until the prince of the host shall make himself greater than he" - viz, the tyrant represented by "the little horn" - "and shall offer the daily sacrifice." If we might read hishleem with the Peshitta instead of hoosh-lak, we get a satisfactory meaning to the last clause, in which case we should render, "He shall complete the place of his sanctuary." We would understand by "complete," "to perfectly purify." Taking the Massoretic text thus with little modification, we have a description of the successes of Judas Maccabseus, who was prince of the host, and as such became stronger than Epiphanes, and then cleansed the temple, and offered the continual daily sacrifice. We give, as a curiosity, the note of Saadiah Gaon: "The King of Ishmael was more powerful than the kings of Rome who had Jerusalem, and he took Jerusalem from them by force."

Yea, he magnified himself even to the prince host,.... Either the high priest Onias, whom he disposed of his office, and put Jason a wicked man into it; or Judas Maccabeus, the prince of the Jewish nation; or rather, as Jacchiades, God himself, the Lord God of Israel, the King, Prince, Governor, and defender of them, whom Antiochus blasphemed; whose worship he puts stop to; and whose temple he profaned, and ill used his people; all which was against God himself, and is a proof of the pride and insolence of this king:

and by him the daily sacrifice was taken away; the lambs in the morning and evening were forbid to be sacrificed; or they could not be offered, because the altar was pulled down, or profaned; and so all other sacrifices were made to cease, as well as this, which is put for all: or, "from him" (d), the prince, "the daily sacrifice was taken away"; either from the priest, who used to offer it; or from God, to whom it was offered:

and the place of his sanctuary was cast down: not that the temple was destroyed by him, but it was profaned and rendered useless; the worship of God was not carried on in it, but the image of Jupiter was set up in it, and it was devoted to the service of an idol; yea, the altar was pulled down, and all the vessels and ornaments of the temple were taken away and destroyed; in the Apocrypha:

"And the table of the shewbread, and the pouring vessels, and the vials, and the censers of gold, and the veil, and the crown, and the golden ornaments that were before the temple, all which he pulled off.'' (1 Maccabees 1:22)

"Now Jerusalem lay void as a wilderness, there was none of her children that went in or out: the sanctuary also was trodden down, and aliens kept the strong hold; the heathen had their habitation in that place; and joy was taken from Jacob, and the pipe with the harp ceased.'' (1 Maccabees 3:45)

"And lo, the heathen are assembled together against us to destroy us: what things they imagine against us, thou knowest.'' (1 Maccabees 3:52)

(d) "ab eo", Pagninus, Montanus, Cocceius, "ab ipso", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Michaelis.

11. to the prince of the host—that is, God Himself, the Lord of Sabaoth, the hosts in heaven and earth, stars, angels, and earthly ministers. So Da 8:25, "he shall stand up against the Prince of princes"; "against the God of gods" (Da 11:36; compare Da 7:8). He not only opposes God's ancient people, but also God Himself.

daily sacrifice—offered morning and evening (Ex 29:38, 39).

taken away—by Antiochus (1 Maccabees 1:20-50).

sanctuary … cast down—Though robbed of its treasures, it was not strictly "cast down" by Antiochus. So that a fuller accomplishment is future. Antiochus took away the daily sacrifice for a few years; the Romans, for many ages, and "cast down" the temple; and Antichrist, in connection with Rome, the fourth kingdom, shall do so again after the Jews in their own land, still unbelieving, shall have rebuilt the temple, and restored the Mosaic ritual: God giving them up to him "by reason of transgression" (Da 8:12), that is, not owning the worship so rendered [Tregelles]; and then the opposition of the horn to the "truth" is especially mentioned.

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