Chap. 8:1-12

DANIEL 2:7 to the end of chapter 7 is written in the Chaldean language, and the rest of the book in Hebrew; for God in His infinite had so ordered it, that the Gentiles might have a testimony in their own tongue of what immediately concerned them.
Chapter 8 describes a power, or more properly a person at the head of a power, who acts in the east, and who will be destroyed because he exalts himself against Christ, after having violently deceived and oppressed the Jewish people. The previous chapter speaks of one who acts in the west, though Israel is ultimately the object of his attack, and Jerusalem the place of his destruction (Zech. 12:2-4), and who is destroyed because of his open rebellion against God. (See Rev. 13 and 19.) But the country in which these two powers are destroyed and their origin is totally different, indeed, the peculiar phases their rebellion takes differ in many important points. The beast of chapter 7 “speaks great words against the Most High,” while the power in chapter 8 stands up against the Prince of princes. (v. 25.) In the former case it is the name by which God is known as possessor of heaven and earth, what He will be then claiming from man as His right and title, and which they will then be refusing to own, ―acknowledging Him as the God of heaven (Rev. 11:13) while claiming the earth for themselves (v. 4 of the same chapter shows us God as beginning to assume His right to it). In the latter case it is a title of Christ that has reference more especially to Israel, and the place they then occupy before God in the world, both for government and worship. (Duet. 32:8.) There is reference made here to “the sanctuary,” “the holy people,” “the daily sacrifice,” and other particulars perfectly unintelligible to a Gentile, having no reference to them, and which are not found in chapter 7.
The vision here, though seen during the existence of the first Gentile monarchy, is placed further east, not at the capital Babylon, but in the province Elam (or Persia), by the river Ulai; hence a symbol belonging to that country is used, viz., a ram instead of the bear of chap. 7:5, and with two horas to represent the component parts of the kingdom, Media and Persia (v. 20); the former, though the younger of the two, finally becoming the greater, has the first place. The scene is thus more to the east than in chapter 7, and the ram pushes westward, northward, and southward, becoming great and overcoming all, when another power arises and from the west; all of these points, if noted, will help to clear up the difficulty to some of an apparent similarity between chapters 7 and 8.
Verse 5 is an inroad from the west, at first sight apparently improbable, as it was from the east that the human race sprang. This power is of vast strength, and moves with exceeding rapidity, led on by some great person; verses 6 and 7 describe an assault by this power under the symbol of a goat coming from the west with a notable horn between his eyes, which is clearly descriptive of Alexander the Great, he being the first king of all Greece, and the only one who as such so totally defeated the Medes and Persians as to answer the description here given, inasmuch as on his death, which happened when at the summit of his power, the kingdoms he had conquered were divided among his four generals, as here described― “Therefore the he goat waxed very great; and when he was strong, the great horn was broken; and for it came up four notable ones toward the four winds of heaven.” (v. 8.) Greece on the west, Egypt on the south, Persia on the east, and Asia Minor on the north, becoming each a separate kingdom. Out of one of them a little horn arises, from which it is not said but as he waxed exceeding great toward the south, and toward the east, and toward the “pleasant land” (see Deut. 11:12; 1 Kings 9:3), it may reasonably be concluded that he came from the north; for in scripture the “pleasant land,” or “Canaan,” is always considered as God’s center. (See Deut. 32:8; Psa. 132:13, 14.)
We now get a partial history of this little horn; how he acts towards Israel, which the interpretation tells us (v. 19) is brought in to show what will happen to them in the closing scenes of the dispensation― the last end of “the indignation.” (See Isa. 10:25.) In the same manner Antiochus Epiphanes is brought in, in chapter 11, as type of a power that will exist in the latter days; for though the one spoken of may be an immediate successor of Alexander, the Brand object of the Spirit is to bring out what will happen “at the time of the end.” It is in consequence, therefore, of the territories he occupies that Scripture speaks of him as “the king of the north.” (chap. 11:40.)
Verse 10 describes the conduct of this power (whose origin we have seen) towards the leaders of the nation, who are called the host of heaven; this marks a position, not a moral state. They are so called because of being God’s people, though not yet publicly owned by Him, yet they are the ones through whom and by whom He will yet exercise His power and authority, when it shall be “the days of heaven upon the earth;” hence the expression, “host of heaven and stars” as a figure of the leaders and their subordinates among the Jewish people; for it is their whole policy that this little hora overturns. From v. 11 to the word “transgression” in the middle of v. 12 must be read as a parenthesis; they are mentioned here in connection with the Jewish system and its overthrow, in order to describe the complete destruction for a time of the worship of God at Jerusalem, and of an insult offered to Christ Himself, who is “the Prince of the host,” to whom the daily sacrifice belongs, and from whom it is taken away. The margin gives a more correct reading― “yea, he magnified even against the Prince of the host, and from Him (that is the Prince of the host) the daily sacrifice was taken away, and the place of His sanctuary was cast down.” This verse and the part of 12 are brought in as the Spirit is occupied with what concerns Israel, accordingly a summary is given of what will befall that nation; viz., the destruction of their worship and defilement of their sanctuary; not merely what the one who is the antitype of this little horn will do, but all the worst evils with which Israel will be afflicted. No doubt Antiochus Ephiphanes, who is here described, actually did all this, but in the interpretation (v. 19), which especially refers to what the antitype of this little horn will do in the latter days, not a word is mentioned of this parenthesis from v. 11 to middle of v. 12, where again the connection with v. 10 is resumed; no longer he as in v. 11 but “it cast down,” &c., the same power as mentioned in v. 10; thus continuing the direct history which for a time had been dropped, in order that the Spirit of God might sum up the various evils with which Israel will be afflicted; for, as another writer has said elsewhere, “God attaches far more importance to what happens to His poor and distressed people, their priests and rulers who govern them, than to all the mighty events which will at that time be going on in the world,” whereby Satan will be seeking to blind men’s eyes, and deceive and hurry them on to destruction.
Scripture Queries and Answers.
WILL you kindly tell me of whom the apostle is speaking, in the latter part of the seventh chapter of Romans? ―E.K.
In order to understand the seventh chapter of Romans, especially the latter part of it, we should remember that it is an argumentative epistle, and therefore we must bear in mind what has gone before. The great point brought out in the third chapter is, that God is righteous (as well as gracious) in the accomplishment of man’s salvation; so that God might “be just, and the Justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.” The state, therefore, in which man is found as a sinner, is thoroughly gone into. The fifth chapter shows man as under sin and death, in connection with Adam. “By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.” The sixth chapter teaches that God’s only way of dealing with man, as to what he is in himself, be by death. God has therefore righteously dealt with man by putting the “old man” to death in a substitute―the Lord Jesus Christ; thus crucifying our “old man” in righteous judgment, and making us “free from sin.” The seventh chapter looks at man proved by the law to be a transgressor, and therefore condemned by the law, and only getting free by having died to it in Christ. But the latter part of this chapter goes deeper than the demands of law. It rather contemplates the weakness and evil of nature. The person is certainly a quickened soul, delighting “in the law of God after the inward man,” but has not got free from self. In thus looking at self, he is not on the ground of faith, but so wholly occupied with self, as not to be able to look away from self to God. He therefore concludes two things about himself; first, the weakness of nature, “how to perform that which is good I find not,” and secondly the wickedness of nature, “when I would do good, evil is present with me.” The more, therefore, he contemplates self in the light of God’s presence, the more miserable he is, and is at length forced to conclude that he requires to be delivered from his whole self. He cries out, “O wretched man that I am! (not who shall deliver me from my sins, but) who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” It is self, nature, his whole being as in the flesh, that he cries to be delivered from; and, blessed be God, the moment he turns to Him, he finds full deliverance from it all through the accomplished work of Christ. This fills him with praise. He therefore exclaims, “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” It is his wretched self― “this body of death,” not sins only, but the thing that did the sins, he finds himself delivered from by Christ; and while he rejoices that the “old man”―the flesh, with its affections and lusts―has thus been ignored, he afterwards tells us that he is now not under condemnation, but has “life in Christ Jesus,” and is entirely free from the law of sin and death. (Rom. 8:1, 2.)