Daniel 8:18

8:15-27 The eternal Son of God stood before the prophet in the appearance of a man, and directed the angel Gabriel to explain the vision. Daniel's fainting and astonishment at the prospect of evils he saw coming on his people and the church, confirm the opinion that long-continued calamities were foretold. The vision being ended, a charge was given to Daniel to keep it private for the present. He kept it to himself, and went on to do the duty of his place. As long as we live in this world we must have something to do in it; and even those whom God has most honoured, must not think themselves above their business. Nor must the pleasure of communion with God take us from the duties of our callings, but we must in them abide with God. All who are intrusted with public business must discharge their trust uprightly; and, amidst all doubts and discouragements, they may, if true believers, look forward to a happy issue. Thus should we endeavour to compose our minds for attending to the duties to which each is appointed, in the church and in the world.

Now as he was speaking with me,.... Addressing him in the above manner: I was in a deep sleep on my face toward the ground; through fear he fell prostrate to the ground, and swooned away, which issued in a deep sleep; and so was unfit to attend to the explanation of the vision the angel was sent to give him; and which was not through indifference to it, or neglect of it; but through human weakness, his nature not being able to bear up under such circumstances, which struck him with such fear and dread: but he touched me, and set me upright; he jogged him out of his sleep, and took him, and raised him up, and set him on his feet; or, "on his standing" (m); which Ben Melech explains, as he "was standing at first"; and so in a better posture to attend to what was about to be revealed unto him. (m) "super stare meum", Montanus, Gejerus; "super stationem meam", Michaelis.

In a deep sleep on my face toward the ground; being terrified and astonished with the splendour and grandeur both of the messenger and message; by the sight and by the voice. Set me upright, by one touch only. The power of spirits is incomparably greater than the strongest of men. Carnal, and flesh and blood, in Scripture signifies weak, 2 Corinthians 10:3,4 .

Daniel 8:18-19. Now as he was speaking, I was in a deep sleep — I was as one that faints away, and falls into a swoon through fear and astonishment. But he touched me, and set me upright — By only a touch of him my strength revived, and I came to myself. And he said, Behold, I will make thee know — I will inform thee, and give thee to understand, what shall be in the last end, or, to the last end, of the indignation — I will acquaint thee with the whole series of God’s judgments upon his people, to the end and conclusion of them. “The prophet had doubtless a regard to the captivity in the first place; and therefore, beginning from this, the angel hints at a sort of epitome of the evils which would fall upon the posterity of God’s chosen people, till their iniquity was taken away, and their sin purged, when the indignation would be overpast, Isaiah 26:20 .” — Wintle.

17. the time of the end—so Da 8:19; Da 11:35, 36, 40. The event being to take place at "the time of the end" makes it likely that the Antichrist ultimately referred to (besides the immediate reference to Antiochus) in this chapter, and the one in Da 7:8, are one and the same. The objection that the one in the seventh chapter springs out of the ten divisions of the Roman earth, the fourth kingdom, the one in the eighth chapter and the eleventh chapter from one of the four divisions of the third kingdom, Greece, is answered thus: The four divisions of the Grecian empire, having become parts of the Roman empire, shall at the end form four of its ten final divisions [Tregelles]. However, the origin from one of the four parts of the third kingdom may be limited to Antiochus, the immediate subject of the eighth and eleventh chapter, while the ulterior typical reference of these chapters (namely, Antichrist) may belong to one of the ten Roman divisions, not necessarily one formerly of the four of the third kingdom. The event will tell. "Time of the end" may apply to the time of Antiochus. For it is the prophetic phrase for the time of fulfilment, seen always at the end of the prophetic horizon (Ge 49:1; Nu 24:14).

18 . I fell into a dead sleep ] Daniel was alarmed when the angel approached ( Daniel 8:17 ): when he spoke to him, he fell paralysed and motionless—or, as we might say (in a figurative sense), stunned —upon his face (cf. the similar passage, Daniel 10:9 ). The word is used of a deep sleep, Jdg 4:21 ; Psalm 76:6 (here of the sleep of death): cf. the corresponding subst., Genesis 2:21 ; Genesis 15:12 ; 1 Samuel 26:12 ; Isaiah 29:10 (here fig. of insensibility). set me upright ] lit. made me stand upon my standing (cf. Daniel 8:17 Heb.), a late Heb. idiom for in my place, where I had stood (R.V. marg. ), 2 Chronicles 30:16 ; 2 Chronicles 34:31 , Nehemiah 13:11 , al. : in the same application as here, Daniel 10:11 . For the fear occasioned by a vision, and the restoration by an angelic touch, cf. Daniel 10:8 ; Daniel 10:10 ; Daniel 10:16 ; Daniel 10:18 ; Enoch lx. 3, 4; 2Es 5:14-15 .

Verse 18. - Now as he was speaking with me, I was in a deep sleep on my face toward the ground; but he touched me, and set me upright . The LXX. joins the opening words of the next verse to this. I was in a deep sleep suggests the case of the three apostles, Peter, James, and John, on the Mount of Transfiguration (Luke 9:82). The numbing effect of the presence of the supernatural produces a state analogous to sleep, yet "the eyes are open" ( Numbers 24:4 ) the senses are ready to convey impressions to the mind. The angel, however, touched Daniel, and set him upright. Daniel 8:18

Now, as he was speaking with me, I was in a deep sleep on my face toward the ground - Overcome and prostrate with the vision. That is, he had sunk down stupified or senseless. See Daniel 10:9 . His strength had been entirely taken away by the vision. There is nothing improbable in this, that the sudden appearance of a celestial vision, or a heavenly being, should take away the strength. Compare Genesis 15:12 ; Job 4:13 , following; Judges 6:22 ; Judges 13:20 , Judges 13:22 ; Isaiah 6:5 ; Luke 1:12 , Luke 1:29 ; Luke 2:9 ; Acts 9:3 , Acts 9:8 . "But he touched me, and set me upright." Margin, as in Hebrew, "made me stand upon my standing." He raised me up on my feet. So the Saviour addressed Saul of Tarsus, when he had been suddenly smitten to the earth, by his appearing to him on the way to Damascus: "Rise, and stand upon thy feet," etc., Acts 26:16 .

As commanded, the angel goes to the place where Daniel stands. On his approach Daniel is so filled with terror that he falls on his face, because as a sinful and mortal man he could not bear the holiness of God which appeared before him in the pure heavenly being. At the appearance of God he fears that he must die. Cf. remarks at Genesis 16:13 and Exodus 33:20 . But the angel, in order to mitigate his alarm, calls him to take heed, for the vision relates to the time of the end. The address ( Daniel 8:17 ), "son of man," stands in contrast to "man of God" ( equals Gabriel), and is designed to remind Daniel of his human weakness (cf. Psalm 8:5 ), not that he may be humbled (Hvernick), without any occasion for that, but to inform him that, notwithstanding this, he was deemed worthy of receiving high divine revelations (Kliefoth). The foundation of the summons to give heed, "for the vision relates to the time of the end," is variously interpreted. Auberlen (p. 87) and Zndel (p. 105ff.) understand עת־קץ not of the time of the end of all history, but of a nearer relative end of the prophecy. "Time of the end" is the general prophetic expression for the time which, as the period of fulfilment, lies at the end of the existing prophetic horizon - in the present case the time of Antiochus. Bleek (Jahrb.f. D.

Theol. v. p. 57) remarks, on the contrary, that if the seer was exhorted to special attention because the vision related to the time of the end, then קץ here, as in Daniel 8:19 ; Daniel 11:35 , Daniel 11:40 ; Daniel 12:4 , also Daniel 9:26 , without doubt is to be interpreted of the end of the time of trial and sorrow of the people, and at the same time of the beginning of the new time of deliverance vouchsafed by God to His people; and herein lay the intimation, "that the beginning of the deliverance destined by God for His people (i.e., the Messianic time) would connect itself immediately with the cessation of the suppression of the worship of Jehovah by Antiochus Epiphanes, and with the destruction of that ruler." From the passages referred to, Daniel 11:40 and Daniel 12:4 , it is certainly proved that עתקץ denotes the time of all suffering, and the completion of the kingdom of God by the Messiah. It does not, however, follow, either that these words "are to be understood of the absolute end of all things, of the time when the Messiah will come to set up His regum gloriae, and of the time of the last tribulation going before this coming of the Lord" (Klief.); or that the prophet cherished the idea, that immediately after the downfall of Antiochus, thus at the close of the 2300 days, the Messiah would appear, bring the world to an end, and erect the kingdom of eternity (v. Leng., Hitz., Maur., etc.).