Daniel 8:14

_ _ unto me — The answer is to Daniel, not to the inquirer, for the latter had asked in Daniel’s name; as vice versa the saint or angel (Job 15:15; Psalms 89:6, Psalms 89:7) speaks of the vision granted to Daniel, as if it had been granted to himself. For holy men are in Scripture represented as having attendant angels, with whom they are in a way identified in interests. If the conversation had been limited to the angels, it could have been of no use to us. But God conveys it to prophetical men, for our good, through the ministry of angels.

_ _ two thousand ... three hundred days — literally, “mornings and evenings,” specified in connection with the morning and evening sacrifice. Compare Genesis 1:5. Six years and a hundred ten days. This includes not only the three and a half years during which the daily sacrifice was forbidden by Antiochus [Josephus, Wars of the Jews, 1:1.1], but the whole series of events whereby it was practically interrupted: beginning with the “little horn waxing great toward the pleasant land,” and “casting down some of the host” (Daniel 8:9, Daniel 8:10); namely, when in 171 b.c., or the month Sivan in the year 142 of the era of the Seleucidae, the sacrifices began to be neglected, owing to the high priest Jason introducing at Jerusalem Grecian customs and amusements, the palaestra and gymnasium; ending with the death of Antiochus, 165 b.c., or the month Shebath, in the year 148 of the Seleucid era. Compare 1 Maccabees 1:11-15; 2 Maccabees 4:9, etc. The reason for the greater minuteness of historical facts and dates, given in Daniel’s prophecies, than in those of the New Testament, is that Israel, not having yet the clear views which Christians have of immortality and the heavenly inheritance, could only be directed to the earthly future: for it was on earth the looked-for Messiah was to appear, and the sum and subject of Old Testament prophecy was the kingdom of God upon earth. The minuteness of the revelation of Israel’s earthly destiny was to compensate for the absence, in the Old Testament, of views of heavenly glory. Thus, in Daniel 9:24-27, the times of Messiah are foretold to the very year; in Daniel 8:14 the times of Antiochus, even to the day; and in Daniel 11:5-20 the Syro-Egyptian struggles in most minute detail. Tregelles thinks the twenty-three hundred “days” answer to the week of years (Daniel 9:27), during which the destroying prince (Daniel 9:26) makes a covenant, which he breaks in the midst of the week (namely, at the end of three and a half years). The seven years exceed the twenty-three hundred days by considerably more than a half year. This period of the seven years’ excess above the twenty-three hundred days may be allotted to the preparations needed for setting up the temple-worship, with Antichrist’s permission to the restored Jews, according to his “covenant” with them; and the twenty-three hundred days may date from the actual setting up of the worship. But, says Auberlen, the more accurate to a day the dates as to Antiochus are given, the less should we say the 1290, or 1335 days (Daniel 12:11, Daniel 12:12) correspond to the half week (roughly), and the twenty-three hundred to the whole. The event, however, may, in the case of Antichrist, show a correspondence between the days here given and Daniel 9:27, such as is not yet discernible. The term of twenty-three hundred days cannot refer twenty-three hundred years of the treading down of Christianity by Mohammedanism, as this would leave the greater portion of the time yet future; whereas, Mohammedanism is fast waning. If the twenty-three hundred days mean years, dating from Alexander’s conquests, 334 b.c. to 323, we should arrive at about the close of the sixth thousand years of the world, just as the 1260 years (Daniel 7:25) from Justinian’s decree arrive at the same terminus. The Jews’ tradition represents the seventh thousand as the millennium. Cumming remarks, 480 b.c. is the date of the waning of the Persian empire before Greece; deducting 480 from 2300, we have 1820; and in 1821, Turkey, the successor of the Greek empire, began to wane, and Greece became a separate kingdom. See on Daniel 12:11.

_ _ cleansed — literally, “justified,” vindicated from profanation. Judas Maccabeus celebrated the feast of dedication after the cleansing, on the twenty-fifth of the ninth month, Kisleu (1 Maccabees 4:51-58; 2 Maccabees 10:1-7; John 10:22). As to the antitypical dedication of the new temple, see Ezekiel 43:1-27, etc.; also Amos 9:11, Amos 9:12.