INTRODUCTION
3. And shall “think to change times and laws.” What laws and whose? Not the laws of other earthly governments; for it was nothing marvelous or
strange for one power to change the laws of another, whenever it could bring such power under its dominion. Not human laws of any kind; for the little horn had power to change these so far as its jurisdiction extended; but the times and laws in question were such as this power should only think to change, but not be able to change. They are the laws of the same Being to whom the saints belong who are worn out by this power; namely, the laws
of the Most High. And has the papacy attempted this? — Yes, even this. It has, in its catechisms, expunged the second commandment of the
decalogue to make way for its adoration of images. It has divided the tenth commandment to make up the number ten. And, more audacious than all!
it has taken hold of the fourth commandment, torn from its place the sabbath of Jehovah, the only memorial of the great God ever given to man, and erected in its place a rival institution to serve another purpose.
4. “And they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.” The pronoun they embraces the saints, the times, and the laws just mentioned. How long a time were they to be given into the hands of this power? A time, as we have seen from the chapter 4:23, is one year;
two times, the least that could be denoted by the plural, two years, and the dividing of time, or half a time (Sept., ,) half a year. Gesenius also gives
“...., Chald., a half. Daniel 7:25,” We thus have three years and a half for the continuance of this power. the Hebrew, or rather the Chaldaic, word for time in the text before us, is , iddan, which Gesenius defines thus:
“Time. Spec. in prophetic language for a year. Daniel 7:25 for a year, also two years and half a year; i.e., for three years and a half; comp.
Jos.B.J.1.1.1.” We must now consider that we are in the
1 See Catholic catechims and the work entitled, “Who Changed the Sabbath?” and works on the Sabbath and Law published by the publishers of this book. midst of symbolic prophecy; hence in this measurement the time is not literal, but symbolic also. The inquiry then arises, How long a period is denoted by the three years and a half of prophetic time? The rule given us in the Bible is, that when a day is used as a symbol, it stands for a year. Eze.4:6; Num.14:34. Under the Hebrew word for day, (yom), Gesenius has this remark: “3. Sometimes [Yamim] marks a definite space of time; viz., a year; as also Syr. and Chald. [iddan] denotes both time and year; and as in English several words signifying time, weight, measure, are likewise used to denote certain specified times, weights, and measures.”
The ordinary Jewish year, which must be used as the basis of reckoning, contained three hundred and sixty days. Three years and a half contained twelve hundred and sixty days. As each day stands for a year, we have twelve hundred and sixty years for the continuation of the supremacy of this horn. Did the papacy possess dominion that length of time/ The answer again is, Yes. The edict of the emperor Justinian, dated A.D.533, made the bishop of Rome the head of all the churches. But this edict could not go into effect until the Arian Ostrogoths, the last of the three horns that were
plucked up to make room for the papacy, were driven from Rome; and this was not accomplished, as already shown, till A.D.538. The edict would have been of no effect had this latter event not been accomplished; hence from this latter year we are to reckon, as this was the earliest point where the saints were in reality in the hand of this power. From this point did the papacy hold supremacy for twelve hundred and sixty years? — Exactly.
For 538 + 1260 = 1798; and in the year 1798, Berthier, with a French army, entered Rome, proclaimed a republic, took the pope prisoner, and for a time abolished the papacy. It has never since enjoyed the privileges and immunities which it possessed before. Thus again this power fulfils to the very letter the specifications of the prophecy, which proves beyond question that the application is correct.
After describing the terrible career of the little horn, and stating that the saints should be given into his hand for 1260 years, bringing us down to 1798, verse 26 declares: “But the judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion, to consume and to destroy it unto the end.” In verse 10 of the same chapter we have substantially the same expression relative to the judgment: “The judgment was set.” It would seem consistent to suppose that the same judgment is referred to in both instances. But the sublime scene described in verse 10 is the opening of the investigative Judgment in the sanctuary in heaven, as will appear in remarks on Daniel 8:14 and 9:25-27. The opening of this judgment scene is located by the prophecy at the close of the great prophetic period of 2300 years, which terminated in 1844. (See under chapter 9:25-27.) Four years after this, in 1848, the great revolution which shook so many thrones in Europe, drove the pope also from his dominions. His restoration shortly after was through the force of foreign bayonets, by which alone he was upheld till his final loss of temporal power in 1870. The overthrow of the papacy in 1798 marked the conclusion of the prophetic period of 1260 years, and constituted the “deadly wound” prophesied in Revelation 13:3, to come upon this power; but this deadly wound was to be “healed.” In 1800
another pope was elected; his palace and temporal dominion were restored, and every prerogative except, as Mr. Croly says, that of a systematic persecutor, was again under his control; and thus the wound was healed.
But since 1870, he has enjoyed no prestige as a temporal prince, among the nations of the earth.
“VERSE 27. And the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people
of the saints of the Most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him. 28. Hitherto is the end of the matter. As for me Daniel, my cogitations much troubled me, and my countenance changed in me: but I kept the matter in my heart.”
After beholding the dark and desolate picture of papal oppression upon the church, the prophet is permitted once more to turn his eyes upon the glorious period of the saints’ rest, when they shall have the kingdom, free from all oppressive powers, in everlasting possession. How could the children of God keep heart in this present evil world, amid the misrule and oppression of the governments of earth, and the abominations that are done in the land, if they could not look forward to the kingdom of God and the return of their Lord, with full assurance that the promises concerning them both shall certainly be fulfilled, and that speedily?
*NOTE. — Some startling events relative to the papacy, filling up the prophecies uttered in this chapter concerning that power, have taken place within a few years of the present time. Commencing in 1798, where the first great blow fell upon the papacy, what have been the chief characteristics of its history? Answer: The rapid defection of its natural supporters, and greater assumptions on its own part. In 1844, the judgment of verse 10 began to sit; namely, the investigative judgment, in the heavenly sanctuary, preparatory to the coming of Christ. Dec.8, 1854, the dogma of the Immaculate Conception was decreed by the pope. July 21, 1870, in the great Ecumenical Council assembled at Rome, it was deliberately
decreed, by a vote of 538 against 2, that the pope was infallible. In the same year, France, by whose bayonets the pope was kept upon his throne, was crushed by Prussia, and the last prop was taken from under the papacy. Then Victor Emmanuel, seeing his
opportunity to carry out the long-cherished dream of a united Italy, seized Rome to make it the capital of his kingdom. To his troops, under General Cadorna, Rome surrendered, Sept.20, 1870. The pope’s temporal power was thus wholly taken away, nevermore, said Victor Emmanuel, to be restored; and since that time, the popes, shutting themselves up in the Vatican, have styled
themselves “prisoners.” Because of the great words which the horn uttered, Daniel saw the beast destroyed, and given to the burning flame. This destruction is to take place at the second coming of
Christ and by means of that event; for the man of sin is to be consumed by the spirit of Christ’s mouth, and destroyed by the brightness of his coming. 2 Thessalonians 2:8. What words could be more arrogant, presumptuous, blasphemous, or insulting to high Heaven, than the deliberate adoption of the dogma of infallibility, thus clothing a mortal man with a prerogative of the Deity? And this was accomplished by papal intrigue and influence, July 21, 1870. Following in swift succession, the last vestige of temporal power was wrenched from his grasp. It was because of these words, and as if in almost immediate connection with them, that the prophet saw this power given to the burning flame. His dominion was to be consumed unto the end, implying that when his power as a civil ruler should be wholly destroyed, the end would not be far off. And the prophet immediately adds: “And the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole
heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High.”
All in this line of prophecy has now been fully accomplished except the closing scene. Next comes the last, crowning act in the drama, when the beast will be given to the burning flame, and the saints of the Most High will take the kingdom. We must be, now, upon the very threshold of this glorious event.**
CHAPTER 8
VISION OF THE RAM, HE GOAT AND LITTLE HORN We now come once more,” says Dr. Clarke, “to the Hebrew,,the Chaldee part of the book being finished. As the Chaldeans had a particular interest both in the history and the prophecies from chapter 2:4 to the end of chapter 7, the whole is written in Chaldee; but as the prophecies which remain concern times posterior to the Chaldean monarchy, and principally relate to the church and people of God generally, they are written in the Hebrew language, this being the tongue in which God chose to reveal all his counsels given under the Old Testament relative to the New.”
“VERSE 1. In the third year of the reign of king Belshazzar a vision appeared unto me, even unto me Daniel, after that which appeared unto me at the first.”
One prominent characteristic of the sacred writings, and one which should forever shield them from the charge of being works of fiction, is the frankness and freedom with which the writers state all the circumstances connected with that which they record. This verse states the time when the vision recorded in this chapter was given to Daniel The first year of Belshazzar was B.C.540. His third year, in which this vision was given, would consequently be 538. If Daniel, as is supposed, was about twenty years of age when he was carried to Babylon in the first year of
Nebuchadnezzar, B.C.606, he was at this time about eighty-eight years of age. The vision he speaks of as the one “which appeared unto him at the first,” is doubtless the vision of the seventh chapter, which he had in the first year of Belshazzar.
“VERSE 2. And I saw in a vision; and it came to pass, when I saw, that I was at Shushan in the palace which is in the province of Elam; and I saw in a vision, and I was by the river of Ulai.”
As verse 1 states the time when, this verse gives the place where, the vision was given. Shushan, as we learn from Prideaux, was the metropolis of the province of Elam. This was then in the hands of the Babylonians, and there the king of Babylon had a royal palace. Daniel, as minister of state, and employed about the king’s business, was accordingly in that place.
Abradates;, viceroy or prince of Shushan, revolted to Cyrus, and the province was joined to the Medes and Persians; so that, according to the prophecy of Isaiah (21:2), Elam went up with the Medes to besiege
Babylon. Under the Medes and Persians it regained its liberties, of which it had been deprived by the Babylonians, according to the prophecy of Jeremiah, chapter 49:39.
“VERSE 3. Then I lifted up mine eyes, and saw, and, behold, there stood before the river a ram which had two horns; and the two horns were high; but one was higher than the other, and the higher came up last. 4. I saw the ram pushing westward, and northward, and southward; so that no beasts might stand before him, neither was there any that could deliver out of his hand; but he did according to his will, and became great.”
In verse 20 an interpretation of this symbol is given us in plain language:
“The ram which thou sawest having two horns are the kings of Media and Persia.” We have only, therefore, to consider how well the symbol answers to the power in question. The two horns represented the two nationalities of which the empire consisted. The higher came up last. This represented the Persian element, which, from being at first simply an ally of the Medes, came to be the leading division of the empire. The different directions in which the ram was seen pushing, denote the directions in which the Medes and Persians carried their conquests. No earthly powers could stand before them while they were marching up to the exalted position to which the providence of God had summoned them. And so successfully were their conquests prosecuted that in the days of Ahasuerus (Est.1:1), the Medo- Persian kingdom extended from India to Ethiopia, the extremities of the then known world, over a hundred and twenty-seven provinces. The prophecy almost seems to fall short of the facts as stated in history, when it simply says that this power “did according to his will, and became great.”
“VERSE 5. And as I was considering, behold, an he-goat came from the west on the face of the whole earth, and touched not the ground; and the goat had a notable horn between his eyes. 6. And he came to the ram that had two horns, which I had seen standing before the river, and ran unto him in the fury of his power. 7. And I saw him come close unto the ram, and he was moved with choler against him and smote the ram, and brake his two horns; and there was no power in the ram to stand before him, but he cast him down
to the ground, and stamped upon him: and there was none that could deliver the ram out of his hand.”
“As I was considering,” says the prophet; and in this he sets an example for every lover of the truth, and all who have any regard for things higher than the objects of time and sense. When Moses saw the burning bush, he said,
“I will now turn aside, and see this great sight.” But how few are willing at the present time to turn aside from their pursuit of business or pleasure to consider the important themes to which both the mercy and the providence of God are striving to call their attention.
The symbol here introduced is also explained by the angel to Daniel Verse 21: “And the rough goat is the king [or kingdom] of Grecia.” Concerning the fitness of this symbol to the Grecian or Madedonian people, Bishop Newton observes that the Macedonians, “about two hundred years before the time of Daniel, were called AEgeadae, the goats’ people:” the origin of which name he explains, according to heathen authors, as follows:
“Caranus, their first king, going with a great multitude of Greeks to seek new habitations in Macedonia, was advised by an oracle to take the goats for his guides to empire: and afterward, seeing a herd of goats flying from a violent storm, he followed them to Edessa, and there fixed the seat of his empire, and made the goats his ensigns, or standards, and called the city AEgae, or the goats’ town, and the people AEgeadae, or the goats’
people.” “The city of Aegeae, or Aegae, was the usual burying-place of the Macedonian kings. It is also very remarkable that Alexander’s son by Roxana was named Alexander Aegus, or the son of the goat; and some of Alexander’s successors are represented in their coins with goats’ horns.”
— Dissertation on the Prophecies, p.238.
The goat came from the west. Grecia lay west of Persia.
“On the face of the whole earth.” He covered all the ground as he passed;
that is, swept everything before him; he left nothing behind.
He “touched not the ground.” Such was the marvelous celerity of his movements that he did not seem to touch the ground, but to fly from point to point with the swiftness of the wind; the same feature is brought to view by the four wings of the leopard in the vision of chapter 7.
The notable horn between his eyes. This explained in verse 21 to be the first king of the Macedonian empire. This king was Alexander the Great.
Verses 6 and 7 give a concise account of the overthrow of the Persian empire by Alexander. The contests between the Greeks and Persians are said to have been exceedingly furious; and some of the scenes as recorded in history are vividly brought to mind by the figure used in the prophecy,
— a ram standing before the river, and the goat running unto him in the fury of his power. Alexander first vanquished the generals of Darius at the River Granicus in Phrygia; he next attacked and totally routed Darius at the passes of Issus in Cilicia, and afterward on the plains of Arbela in Syria.
This last battle occurred in B.C.331, and marked the conclusion of the Persian empire, for by this event Alexander became complete master of the whole country. Bishop Newton quotes verse 6: “And he [the goat] came to the ram which I had seen standing before the river, and ran unto him in the fury of his power;” and adds: “One can hardly read these words without having some image of Darius’s army standing and guarding the River Granicus, and of Alexander on the other side, with his forces plunging in, swimming across the stream, and rushing on the enemy with all the fire and fury that can be imagined.” — Id., p.239.
Ptolemy begins the reign of Alexander B.C.332; but it was not till the battle of Arbela, the year following, that he became, according to Prideaux (Vol.1, p.378), “absolute lord of that empire to the utmost extent in which it was ever possessed by the Persian kings.” On the eve of this engagement, Darius sent ten of his chief relatives to sue for peace; and upon their
presenting their conditions to Alexander, he replied, “Tell your sovereign...
that the world will not permit two suns nor two sovereigns!”
The language of verse 7 sets forth the completeness of the subjection of Medo-Persia to Alexander. The two horns were broken, and the ram was cast to the ground and stamped upon. Persia was subdued, the country ravaged, its armies cut to pieces and scattered, its cities plundered, and the royal city of Persepolis, the capital of the Persian empire, and even in its ruins one of the wonders of the world to the present day, was sacked and burned. Thus the ram had no power to stand before the goat, and there was none that could deliver him out of his hand.
“VERSE 8. 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.”
The conqueror is greater than the conquered. The ram, Medo- Persia, became great; the goat, Grecia, became very great. And when he was